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Now you see it…

By Amy Elliott + photos by Kate Engeriser You’re seeing something you know, but you don’t know what you’re seeing – that’s how “Super Subconscious” hits the eyes. Painted in grayscale and composed of hundreds of layered advertising icons, it shifts with your gaze; some things come into relief, others fall concealed. The panels of the mural snap as they sway and sink in the wind. You can hear it for blocks on Vliet Street when the traffic is light. Two kids who’ve come to skate at the Vliet Street Commons hoist their skateboards to shield the sun from their eyes.They laugh at the cackling mug of Spongebob Squarepants, point at the logos they recognize and the brands they like.   “Led Zeppelin,” says one to the other. “This is awesome.”   Its sharp lines catch the glances of drivers-by; it looks like an emphatic banner for an epic party in the Commons or a stark charge of political will. But the piece is the attempt of artists Harvey Opgenorth and Nate Page – in their own words – to “graft a mural-sized ‘representation’ of the subconscious mind” and “to disrupt commercially implied cultural value systems.” Later this month, Opgenorth will install “Subliminal” in the window of an empty storefront across the street at 4920 Vliet, a neon piece that will blink its own questions about the nature of advertising.   Both installations are part of a collaboration with the West End Vliet Street Business Association (WEVSBA) and IN:SITE (insitemilwaukee.org), an organization for the encouragement, management and promotion of temporary public art in Milwaukee.   “Vliet street has a lot of missing teeth,” says Pat Mueller, President of WEVSBA. “From 43rd to 60th we have Washington Park, the old 3rd district police station, Wick Field – things that sort of eat into our retail and commercial space.”   But that same stretch – 43rd to 60th – has no national chain stores, a fact that Mueller, and the artists working for IN:SITE, wanted to celebrate and explore.   “The whole climate of the city has changed since these business districts were built,” says Mueller. “The little stores that met people’s everyday needs don’t exist anymore. You have to find a niche, and to that end we have really moved toward art.”   The backbone of hope   IN:SITE embraces temporary art for reasons that are practical as well as conceptual. Less upkeep and financial overhead means more artists have the chance to share their voices and more neighborhoods can afford to participate. Non-permanent art can change with neighborhoods that are as dynamic and diverse as the people that live in them, and the projects always stay fresh, surprising and adventurous. In the North Avenue Gateway District on the west side, on the corner of a handsome but empty building, Chris Silva and Michael Genovese hang weathered signs, hand-lettered with equally weathered aphorisms: “Every man is guilty of the good he did not do;” “It is a sign of strength, not […]