2008-01 Vital Source Mag – January 2008
Further Considerations
In part one of my look at the Inova/Kenilworth exhibition (now – March 14), I signed off with a few questions for the exhibit’s curator, Nicholas Frank. Because there has been controversy about the balance of men vs. women receiving Mary L. Nohl Fellowships, and because the current Inova/Kenilworth event features four women and one man, I thought this might be his way of smoothing things out. Here’s his reply: My programming isn’t a direct response to the Nohl Fellowship situation, because the problem is not with the Nohl program; it exists in the art world at large. I don’t think it’s difficult to program excellent exhibitions that reflect the actual gender balance among practicing artists. He continued his comments with some thoughts on shaping shows: I curate to reflect what artists are doing. The shows need to be relevant to the general art-going public, and also to the university audience, because we want Inova to be a curricular resource within the Peck School of the Arts. The drawing show illustrates the rise of drawing and narrative strategies among contemporary artists, and is useful for visual art faculty and students in that it expands notions of what drawing is and can be. There are sculptural, photographic and conceptual elements at play in this show, too. In an earlier conversation, Frank told me he considered 10 artists; he may possibly include the five who didn’t make the cut in a future show. I assume that they were all good choices, simply because Frank has a great eye for what works and what doesn’t. Curators must deal with all kinds of problems: availability of work, space and scheduling, which may conflict with artists’ other jobs. It’s a lot to consider, and Inova/Kenilworth is only one venue under the Peck banner; Frank also curates Inova/Arts Center and Inova/Zelazo (Mary L. Nohl Galleries). To give you an idea of how interwoven it all is, on February 6, Claire Pentecost, who is participating in the current Kenilworth show, will consider the “great tradition of drawing and its current place as a mediator between self and the social” at the Arts Center lecture hall. As Frank noted in his statement, the show includes “sculptural, photographic, and conceptual elements.” As a unit, the entire exhibit is provocative, but not over-the-top, and from my standpoint the drawing theme holds true while conveying social anxieties. This is no easy trick, for how does a fine artist use words like “flatulence” and “poop” (and other arguably vulgar words) in a way that makes you want to keep reading? Deb Sokolow does it via story-telling. Her choice is freedom of expression; she almost dares you to hang in there, to see if the text and images (attached to several walls with push pins and tape) will lead you to a satisfactory end. But don’t expect her tale to necessarily end well. Unless you are a true fan of the wild, it takes time to explore her work (she’s a fan of […]
Jan 28th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Drawing Conclusions
Deb Sokolow: The Trouble with People You Don’t Know The Flight of Fake Tears: Large-Scale Narrative Drawing: Dominic McGill, Robyn O’Neil, Claire Pentecost, Amy Ruffo Peck School Of The Arts Institute of Visual Arts Inova/Kenilworth 2155 N. Prospect Ave. The Institute of Visual Arts in the splendid Inova/Kenilworth building welcomes their spring season with politics, pop culture and drawings (and photographs of drawings, plus a funky tent) of anxieties – to my mind, quite appropriate in a year already laden with political back-stabbing, crashing global markets and the continuing war. I left my condo on Prospect (I can see the Kenilworth from my north windows) armed with reams of print-outs detailing the heavy credentials of the participants. Curator Nicholas Frank is reason enough to pay attention to this show, though I figured if boredom set in I could duck into Urban Outfitters next door and peruse crazy in-your-face retail items. Reviewing group exhibitions often (unless the work is wretched) demands several visits and careful consideration. James Auer, the late Milwaukee Journal Sentinel art critic, solved this problem by listing some of the artists in group shows he reviewed as “others,” thus eliminating names and lengthy text with a stroke of his powerful pen. Any artist who’s ever been identified as an “other” knows that it stings like a bee. The Inova/Kenilworth event is divided into The Trouble with People You Don’t Know – works by Chicago-based artist Deb Sokolow – and The Flight of Fake Tears, which includes the talents of Dominic McGill, Robyn O’Neil, Claire Pentecost and Amy Ruffo. Ms. Sokolow will launch the Department of Visual Arts’ guest lecture series (“Artists Now!”) on January 30 at 7pm. This is the first of a three-part series to explore more fully the works of each artist. Curator Frank was on site when I visited (two days prior to the opening), and Bruce Knackert, Director of Galleries, was busy hammering and helping the artists with the installation process. At one point, Frank dashed out for latte and healthy stuff from Beans & Barley for artist Deb Sokolow, who had forgotten to eat! Dominic McGill’s canvas tent waited to be unpacked from its small cardboard box, while Claire Pentecost waited for some framed pieces to arrive. Propped on the north wall in a space Frank describes as a “cathedral space,” Robyn O’Neil’s graphite drawing had been freed from bubble wrap, but not yet installed. Amy Ruffo was due in at any moment, likely en route from Sheboygan where she is the special projects coordinator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Sokolow spent much of her time down on her knees, cutting and preparing her narrative drawing, which snakes around a generous space and invites the viewer to keep going, reading and thinking and making choices. She’s a storyteller for sure. “I re-read lots of Nancy Drew books to prepare for this,” she remarked, adding that she’s in her studio so much that she doesn’t get much time to read things not […]
Jan 25th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Arabesque Music Ensemble
By Blaine Schultz Umm Kulthum was a very popular Arabic vocalis; in her beautiful and powerful voice, she performed songs composed for her by a trio of talented men. Zakariyya Ahmad, Muhammad al-Qasabji and Riyad al-Sunbati are known as the Three Musketeers. This album is made up of tunes written in the 1930s and 1940s – some of which were originally recorded for movies. This is not a reissue, but a contemporary project of the Chicago-based Arabesque Music Ensemble. It is a tribute to the composers. For these recordings, the ensemble worked with 75-year-old vocalist Youssef Kassab, who transcribed the original recordings. While most of the group members are in their 20s and 30s (and have recorded with Shakira and Beyonce), they sought to recreate the vibe of the original era. The Three Musketeers were traditionalists for the most part, but added touches of Western influene – hence the appearance of cello alongside ‘ud and qanun. Liner note translation of the lyrics speak of sacred and secular devotion and patriotism – love in its many forms. What stands out is the care the musicians took with this music. Lilting melodies glide and rage with ease. The Arabesque Music Ensemble performs February 5 at the DeKoven Center in Racine.
Jan 25th, 2008 by Vital Archives
True West
Sam Shepard’s True West is a cleverly dark comedy that would be all too easy to overdo in all the wrong places. A less than shrewd production could miss the finesse of the original script, but the Spiral Theatre, in a tiny space on National Avenue, brings the right immediacy and intimacy to capture Shepard’s somewhat sinister humor with strikingly vivid form. In a testament to its growing prominence in local theatre, Spiral Theatre nearly sold out its 30+ capacity studio theatre on one of the coldest nights of the year. Spiral’s show is impressive, and while not all of the finer points of Shepard’s script are perfectly intact, the company manages to deliver an exceedingly enjoyable trip to the theatre. Len Macki stars as Austin, a struggling screenwriter who is looking after his mother’s place while she is away in Alaska. He’s managed to secure a meeting at her place with an important Hollywood producer (Josh Wetzel) to pitch an idea for a love story. The only problem: his brash older brother (Terry Gavin) is staying with him and threatens to blow Austin’s one chance at getting the producer’s green light. Things begin to unravel when Austin’s brother convinces the producer that it would be a good idea for Austin to write a Western instead. (Okay: Shepard’s plot is a lot better than it sounds in a few sentences. And if it’s not staged correctly, it’s every bit as cheesy as it sounds.) Len Macki, comfortably at the center of the production, holds much of the production together. (He’s not prominent locally, but he’s been active elsewhere, most notably Madison.) He dynamically renders Austin’s emotional development over the course of the play, moving from one intricately realized moment to the next. When Austin loses composure and takes to drinking, his emotional collapse is palpable. When he’s clearly dropping pieces of toast into toasters that aren’t plugged in, it makes sense even, though the illusion isn’t complete. Everything that happens around Austin makes sense, even when the production doesn’t make anything clear, and for that, Macki is truly remarkable. Gavin and Wetzel competently hold up their ends of the play. Gavin plays the seedy older brother with a subtle hint of a greater depth. Wetzel plays a Hollywood producer with a nice-guy charisma you wouldn’t expect from a man in his position. This contrast makes for an interesting performance; Wetzel seems almost guileless in a job one would expect to be played like a politician. Rounding out the cast is Sandra Stark in the role of the mother – again (during the holidays she appeared in Boulevard Theatre‘s production of Indian Blood). Seeing Stark play mother twice in three months would be strange if she weren’t so good at it. She speaks the lines. She doesn’t really need to do much more than that. She’s a natural for this kind of role, and here she’s a clever bookend to the production. Spiral Theatre’s production of True West runs through February […]
Jan 24th, 2008 by Russ Bickerstaff
Romancing the seed?
Seed Cycles: Works by Sally Kuzma Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum 2220 N. Terrace Avenue January 23 – April 6, 2008 Artist’s Talk: Sunday, February 24, 2 p.m. One would guess that the majority of visitors to the Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew (near London), likely have little scientific interest in The Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP), entrenched on 300 acres. The venerable Botanic Gardens are no doubt gardens of earthly delights, but the Seed Bank Project is decidedly unromantic, in that its vision is to conserve seeds from the world’s wild plant species by the end of the decade. So far they’ve banked 10% of the rarest, “most threatened and most useful species known to man.” They are also scanning their massive herb collection with something called the HerbCat. Nearer to home, at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, an elaborate Italianate showplace on a high bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, Milwaukee-based artist Sally Kuzma exhibits Seed Cycles, January 23-April 6. Her work is rooted in direct experiences with the natural world, specifically in the five years she spent in Iowa before moving to Milwaukee. The ongoing series (images of plant specimens scanned onto her computer and variously altered) is said to explore “the relationships people have with the natural world.” A preview is available at the artist’s website. As I write, I can’t help but thinking of photographer Tom Bamberger’s magnificent works which opened the gallery in the Inova/Kenilworth building, most particularly “Spring Corn,” a bleached-out, drained-of-emotion digitally altered photograph. As a former Iowan, I initially ogled the work through nostalgic eyes, even though the stark image was taken near Mequon. Coldly elegant and impersonal, the result was uncontrived, and it’s my guess that it took some doing to make it so. Frankly, I often need to remind myself that “nature is uncaring.” Of course Homo sapiens has forever altered the natural world, and artists of that species also alter it to fit their personal needs (and the demands of curators and text-panel writers), but beyond that, I think the “relationship” slant is a big ball of nothing. When I visit the Milwaukee Art Museum and stand before a painting by the 19th-century American landscape painter Thomas Moran (who is also represented in the collection of the Charles Allis Museum, a partner of Villa Terrace), I know I’m in a romantic space with romantic paintings, but what do they really reveal about the relationship between people and the natural world? To drive the point home, go online and take a look at New Orleans After The Flood, a series of photographs by Robert Polidori, stunning images about the Big Easy right after Katrina. Does nature give a hoot about “relationships?” I don’t think so. Kuzma somewhat clarified the relationship boondoggle in an email: “I don’t know if I’d claim to investigate the relationship people have with the natural world. The scanner and the computer are just a way to get a closer look at them. Like a scientist, I’m […]
Jan 23rd, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Say Goodnight, Gracie
At the end of the night, amidst echoes of laughter, it is difficult to leave the Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Milwaukee premiere of Say Goodnight, Gracie. Yet there is plenty to consider afterwards in this 1978 script by Ralph Pape, whom in 2007 the Dramatist’s Guild of America selected as one of the country’s top 50 playwrights to watch. Five new and emerging actors carry this 90-minute, no-intermission evening, which conveys the Boulevard’s mission: to help young talent perfect their professional craft. Under the direction of Jon Beideschies, they create an exuberant energy and chemistry on the stage that brings both laughter and pathos to the production. The action revolves around two “almost 30-somethings” on the evening of their high school reunion. Jerry (Keith Tamsett) returns from another audition, told that “he will never, never, never play Hamlet on any stage.” Steve (Tom Dillon), an unpublished writer, lingers in Jerry’s tiny apartment, fantasizing that he has finally written a sitcom script that will finally make both of them famous. Add Jerry’s girlfriend Ginny (Rachael Lau), a somewhat successful singer, Bobby (Jason Will) and his sexually liberated girlfriend Catherine (Ericka Wade) to this pre-party exchange and the night blows away in a puff of marijuana smoke as everyone reminisces on the “high.” The group shares their surprising hopes, dreams and expectations as they discuss growing up during television’s “Golden Age” with Milton Berle and Groucho Marx. Tom Dillon’s Steve adeptly crafts his character with comic delight, while the women give capable performances. Tamsett leaves us wanting for more depth with his distressed Jerry, but it is Jason Will as Bobby who really brings the smoke; his lines are some of the most poignant, and they soften the laughter. “Everything cycles,” he says. “Like the three cycles on a washing machine … birth, life, and death … Everything comes around again so it doesn’t matter. Fifties, sixties, or seventies – it’s all the same.” As this disenchanted quintet discusses the Rolling Stone’s Mic Jagger – already an “old fart” in ’78 – and asks questions about going nowhere, the joy of being alive and the fear of the unknown, the play echoes with relevance more than a pure comedy could. Their realization that television and movies preserve the past, and that time passes quickly while the world changes, creates the wonder that perhaps tears are more appropriate than smiles when the lights go out at the end of Say Goodnight, Gracie. Tickets should sell out quickly at the Boulevard Theatre during this enjoyable production’s run before the last performance on February 3. VS
Jan 22nd, 2008 by Peggy Sue Dunigan
1963
The “Brown Bomber,” a 1947 four door Plymouth sporting plenty of chrome, sits center stage amid the day to day family life portrayed in The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. This world premiere play, adapted by Reginald Andre Jackson from the classic children’s book by Christopher Curtis Chapman, touches on America’s racial unrest in the 60’s. The first act takes place in Flint, Michigan, Chapman’s industrial hometown, and the Watson’s home life concerns sub-zero weather, welfare, school bullies and the discipline of their eldest son, “bad weather Byron.” Kenny, the story’s narrator, is a 10-year-old intellectual odd ball with a lazy eye and horn-rimmed glasses who frustrates Byron and his younger sister Joetta. When Byron refuses to learn from his continual mistakes, all five drive to Birmingham, home of their Grandma Sands, in an effort to get Byron on the right track. Protest marches and bombings in Birmingham’s streets during this time of social change show the significance of family and courage for people of any color. The set design is important for moving the action, especially the classic Brown Bomber, which rolls back and forth on half the stage. Once again, Kurt Schnabel’s imaginative lighting effects create excitement, especially in the second act. Yet the scene sequences move somewhat slowly, and the action is unclear or confusing at times, as the Birmingham cast appears slightly removed from the emotion in the play. But Jeremy Tardy as Byron creates a believably rebellious teenager, as does young Kelly Perry’s kindergartner, Joetta. The parents play a reduced roll in the production, letting the sibling rivalry between Kenny and Byron carry the script. It climaxes in the second act during Birmingham’s civil unrest, when the children ask “Why does hate eat them up?’ and “How’s these men hate negroes so much they could kill little girls in a church?” Whether in regards to the pivotal race riots of the 1960s or the violence still prevalent in 2008, these crucial questions warrant discussion after the performance, as these underlying issues remain timely in an increasingly diverse contemporary society. As Kenny displays courage in protecting his brothers and sisters, people of any ethnicity will appreciate the value of family, and the notion that every family demonstrates courage when they tackle problems together. Day to day rituals, including a belief system of faith, resonate through the performance as First Stage reminds audiences that family is indeed precious, even with their troubles – it’s a great comfort in life to be surrounded by, as Grandma Sands says, “My fambly, my beautiful, beautiful fambly.” VS First Stage Children’s Theater‘s production of The Watson Go to Birmingham – 1963 continues through February 15 at the Todd Wehr Theater, Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. 414.273.7206.
Jan 22nd, 2008 by Peggy Sue Dunigan
Berzerk!!!
In the hours I spent watching the snow fall in Green Bay, I’d forgotten that the relatively quiet streets of Milwaukee’s East Side weren’t filled with snow. In something very much resembling a good mood, I caught the #15 bus to Bay View for my second evening of high-pressure theatre. I was headed to The Alchemist Theatre for Berzerk!!! — an evening of ten-minute plays presented by Alamo Basement and Insurgent Theatre. Last year’s event at the Turner Hall Ballroom had been an exceedingly good time, and I had no reason to think this year’s show would be any different. There were only a few people at the theatre’s bar when I got there, but a couple of beers into the evening, the place began to fill. Alamo Basement co-founder Mike Q. Hanlon introduced the sold-out show by way of explanation: for Berzerk!!!, Hanlon took lines from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and sent them to local playwrights, who were then given 10 self-enforced minutes to write a short script. Eleven shorts were performed by Insurgent and Alamo Basement cast members, mostly dressed in simple black. Two of the shows had been pre-selected for longer re-writes to be performed at the end of the show, and to complicate things further, during Hanlon’s introduction, a pair of playwrights worked alone on a pair of 10-minute shorts that would receive staged readings during the evening. The 15 shorts performed here were an interesting contrast to the show I’d seen the previous evening – Bunny Gumbo’s Combat Theatre. Combat Theatre is a different kind of theatre under pressure: playwrights pull a topic and a location out of hats. Twenty-four hours later, a series of shorts hit the stage. Everything involved in each of the eight productions must be completed in the same 24-hour period of time. The Bunny Gumbo shows tended to be light comedy sketches with a minimum of innovation. Berzerk!!! ranged from intense drama to absurdist comedy, in settings vague and abstract, clearly defined and realistic. Berzerk!!!’s diversity probably came form the process: playwrights worked alone on their own time before handing scripts over to Hanlon and company, who had a substantial amount of time to construct a dozen or so mini-productions. Perhaps working in a combative environment tends to produce sketch comedy the way a writer working alone tends to produce less predictable work. Maybe it’s just the writers that were available for each project. It’s all speculation from the outside, but Berzerk!!! seemed a lot edgier than the first night of Bunny Gumbo’s pleasantly commercial Combat Theatre. The show opened with one of the plays written during the opening monologue, a reasonably clever piece by Rex Winsome. Winsome’s near-comic over-emphasis on philosophy and politics was the basis for a unique tone. Taken too far, this could have come across like an empty gimmick, but Winsome’s voice was sharp enough to keep this from happening. Chelsea Bernard’s Marty and Maryann was a fun little domestic conversation rendered in respectably heavy […]
Jan 22nd, 2008 by Russ Bickerstaff
Arthur, The Boy Who Would Be King
The legend of King Arthur goes so far back that historians aren’t in perfect agreement as to exactly when or where it may have originated. In the modern age, stories of the Arthurian legend have been adapted to film, television, comic books, ballets and even a couple of rock operas. The latest incarnation of the legend to hit local theatres is actor/playwright James DeVita’s Arthur, The Boy Who Would Be King, now playing at the Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove. It’s a family show, written to be equally appealing to both children and parents. The resident playwright of First Stage Children’s Theatre, DeVita’s work here is an admirable adaptation of the old legends. Camelot is on the verge of collapse. Arthur is wracked with feelings of futility as everything he has worked for is falling apart. Merlin acts as a sort of Dickensian Christmas spirit, taking Arthur through his childhood into the dawn of Camelot and beyond. What unfolds isn’t exactly an inspired or insightful look into a story that’s been explored countless times, but it isn’t a tedious re-tread either. The cleverest moments in the script surround Merlin, a shadowy figure who has been a lot of fun for writers over the decades. DeVita realizes his wisdom with a kind of playfulness that keeps the play from becoming lost in its own drama. Some of this playfulness is competently captured here by Ed Carroll in the role of the wizard with the aid of lighting and other modest stage effects. The rest of the cast is big — really, really big. The Main Stage of the Sunset Playhouse is used to its fullest capacity here as thirty or more actors filter through the play, many of them children. Arthur and the other main characters are played by no less than thee actors each. Adult Arthur (Rick Richter) sees himself as a child (Stefano Romero) and an adolescent (Jon Van Gilder). Richter has all the presence of a King, with Romero and Van Gilder of appropriately less regal bearing as someone who was not at all noble until he drew a certain sword out of a certain stone. The play cycles through three distinct casts to represent different eras. As dramatic as this may seem, it feels quite natural, though it makes the full size of the cast feel less impressive than it would if everyone were playing a different character. The set by talented Sunset scenic artist J. Michael Desper is not as showy as might be expected, but the many bricks of the caste wall form a multi-tiered performance surface. It also serves as a nice space for the fight scenes choreographed by the Gene Schuldt. Shuldt’s great talent is normally evident, but here he’s working with a huge group of relatively inexperienced people, so it isn’t quite as show-stopping here. Like much of the rest of the production, the general immensity of things drowns out the power of the individual in a less than balanced production that […]
Jan 22nd, 2008 by Russ Bickerstaff
The riches of Ruin
It’s impossible to ignore “Ruin,” an assemblage of 32 antique TV cabinets, stacked against the north wall on the main level of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The installation, by Nam June Paik, is part of Sensory Overload, a reinstallation of the contemporary art galleries which opens on January 24 and runs until 2009. Overload promises light, motion, sound and the optical in art since 1945, but I advise the wise to absorb it bit by bit, as if spearing peas from a TV dinner. I followed my own counsel and spent two hours sitting in front of “Ruin” watching 2-channel video flash and wink from the cabinets, mostly turned upside down so that their pedestals would serve as supports for the towering, pyramidal installation. This artist’s world is upside down; should you care to compare, Marquette University’s Haggerty Museum of Art has a Paik installation. “Ruin” would have been a perfect fit for the creepy otherworld of Blade Runner. It’s strangely robotic and detached, but the idea of television and all that the word implies remains highly personal. I grew up in a small town in rural Iowa, and I distinctly recall standing outside our local appliance store in the late 1940s, peering through the plate glass window with other folks who had gathered to see a genuine television set in action. It wasn’t long before we had one in our living room. The image on the screen was small, fuzzy and gray, which gave rise to much fiddling and twiddling with dials when we gathered as a family to watch one of the program. Was it Milton Berle? Show of Shows? It didn’t matter; television had come to our town and our house. It seemed important. Astounding! Even miraculous! Over the years, television became a fixture in homes everywhere – first just one, then maybe two or more. The bigger and flashier the television sets became, it seemed the content worth watching began to shrink. We scraped bottom when a recent televised political “debate” involved YouTube, a Bible and a question about Jesus. But I suppose I stuffed myself on As The World Turns, so who am I to criticize drek? While plopped in front of “Ruin 2001,” I engaged a trio of students from St. Louis who paused to peruse the blinking installation. They said they don’t watch television, but gave a good explanation of the intricacies of the 2-channel video system and moved closer to see if there was anything “familiar” in the loopy colorful images. “I think I just saw a Star of David flash by,” one of them remarked as he checked for messages on his cell phone. A group of chattering elementary school students led by a docent drifted in, barely giving Paik’s work a nod. I heard one of them ask what it was about, but before due consideration of the work was given, the herd moved on to the next dazzling thing. Perhaps one needs to be at least 40 years old […]
Jan 17th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Peep Show
Peep Show Brooks Barrow Gallery Marshall Building (lower level) 207 E. Buffalo Jan. 11 – Jan. 16 414-331-8635 brooksbarrowgallery.com When the invitation arrived to attend Peep Show, an exhibit of photographs by ten students of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee adjunct professor of photography Tom Bamberger, whose career includes impressive exhibits of his own work, plus a former position as adjunct curator of photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum, I was intrigued by the fact that he’s now a college professor. “Lucky kids,” was my first thought. Bamberger is a fully mature artist, and in many ways his teaching position is a hard won homecoming. After attending Boston University, he extended his credentials at UWM’s graduate school, where he pondered philosophy and taught mathematical logic. He writes thoughtfully about public art and architecture for Milwaukee Magazine and continues his career as a photographer (when Renatured opened the splendid Inova/Kenilworth building, Bamberger’s work enlivened the walls). Over the past 30 years, he’s proven beyond a doubt that he gets what art is. Of course, it’s one thing to know what it is, and another thing to teach what it is; credentials do not necessarily a good teacher make. But the note Bamberger attached to the Brooks Barrow invitation speaks volumes about his interaction with the photography students he guided during the fall semester: I asked them to make an interesting picture. They took pictures of the moonrise over the Calatrava. All we learned is what is NOT an interesting picture. Hundreds of pictures later they finally asked, “So what is a good picture?” There is no answer to that question. I told them that an “interesting” picture would have to be interesting to you before it would be interesting to anyone else, including me. Finally a breakthrough happened after they told their bossy inner voice to shut up. Everything they were telling themselves might be a good picture was wrong. All of their teachers were wrong. The books are wrong. They were looking with everyone else’s eye but their own. It takes some guts to see the world uniquely and be a student at the same time. I tried to rattle their brains. The students did the rest. It was fun. They taught each other. Saw each other see for the first time. Another great teacher, John Updike, wrote recently in The New Yorker about “visual trophies” – snapshots, and his connection to them throughout the years. An obvious fan of Susan Sontag, he quotes from an essay included in her 1977 book “On Photography.” “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability … a photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence.” I visited the exhibit the day before the January 11 opening. The space was buzzing with excitement and a distinct air of cooperation. In the middle of it all was Bamberger, offering a suggestion here, an encouraging word there. Known for his strong opinions, which raise […]
Jan 11th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
A refreshing change
Images courtesy Milwaukee Art Museum Chicago. Metzker, Ray K. American, b. 1931. 1958. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Robert A. Fine When I finally visited the Ramirez exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Baker-Rowland Galleries were jammed with students, oldsters and in-betweeners. I managed to snag MAM’s Executive Director David Gordon and ask him why the glorious Windhover Hall was plastered with cheesy banners touting upcoming shows. After all, can’t people get information from the “information” desks? Apparently not. Gordon thinks folks want information fast and quick, so I guess cheesy banners are currently arty junk food. Anyway, Mr.Gordon said the banners were his idea, and that was that. One can only hope we don’t go into “banner overload,” though in my mind, we already have. The best part of my visit was a trip up to the Mezzanine area to view the Museum’s collection of photographs, which were formerly (and disgracefully) installed on an alley-like wall on the main floor. I always thought it was an insult to have them exhibited in such an out-of-the-way space, as if they didn’t deserve better. Now that they are on the north wall of the Mezzanine, I can more fully appreciate the collection that has been gathering strength for fifty years. Lisa Hostetler, associate curator of photographs, shepherds the rotating displays, and her snug office is appropriately beyond the wooden doors leading to the Print Room. Ms. Hostetler took time to chat with me about how works are acquired for the collection; basically, she considers many and selects a few she feels are best suited for acquisition. Her selections are then presented to a core group of devoted individuals who support the art of photography at the museum, among them the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation, which has contributed to the purchase of hundreds of photographs dating from the nineteenth century to the present. We took a stroll, albeit too brief, with Hostetler pointing out a lovely work by Wisconsin artist, Ray Metzker, one of many beauties (but not too many, as photographs, like all forms of fine art, demand room to breathe) which will be up until February 20. It’s a plus to view them in a serene space away from the fray of sensory stimulation directly below, and if you are a student of photography, or perhaps someone curious about the art of the daguerreotype, the area has several glass cases with artifacts and explanations about the 19th century process. Another nearby case held an exquisite 1850’s photograph, “Young Girl.” By way of contrast, be sure and take a look at “Nancy,” an amazing Chuck Close painting, very like a huge photograph, crooked teeth and all, on the first floor. There’s more. On February 9, Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945, opens in the Baker-Rowland Gallery. Organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington and coordinated at MAM by Ms. Hostetler, these 160 photographs should knock your socks off. The show runs through May 4. […]
Jan 11th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
