Art
Cinco Jugueteros de Venezuela @ Latino Arts Center
I hate sounding like Scrooge, but my memory bank is filled with nights-before-Christmas spent assembling toys for my kids. If you’ve ever tried finding a minuscule screw in inch-high shag carpeting, you know what I mean. There were endless batteries to test, a parade of dolls (Chatty Kathy, Baby Wets, Raggedy Ann) and, atop our aluminum tree, a revolving purple-and-blue light on the fritz. And where were Barbie’s pink shoes and Ken’s shirt? Would my 5-year-old like the green cowboy boots I bought in Mexico? I learned later that not one kid in his preppy pre-school wore cowboy boots, let alone green ones. What was I thinking? The turkey thawing in the kitchen seemed to be the only thing not giving me tizzies. On these nightmares before Christmas, I slugged down extra eggnog. Cinco Jugueteros de Venezuela (Handcrafted Venezuelan Toys) was scheduled to open Friday, December 7 (5pm-7pm) at the Latino Arts Center, 1028 S. 9th St. When I arrived for the gala opening, it had been rescheduled. The new date is Friday, January 4, 2008. The show will run through January, so you’ll be able to greet the New Year with a selection of toys crafted entirely by hand, with no assembly required and no lead-paint problems. As I write this, the shipment of toys is sitting somewhere in Memphis, held up due to changes in Venezuelan shipping regulations. “The toys don’t talk, they don’t walk. They run entirely by imagination,” said Zulay Oszkay, a member of the Milwaukee Arts Board and Artistic Director of Latino Arts, Inc. She added that she and her staff had painted the 300 sq. ft. auditorium room entirely white so as to better “show off” the toys. They tracked the Fed-Ex shipment for several days, right up to the last minute, but alas! No toys in time for the December 7 opening. The toys were to be accompanied by the artisans who made them, but they were unable to get visas for the visit. While writing this, I found a website blasting Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez. It seems he thinks Barbie and Ken represent “disgusting stupidity”; his holiday choices are items made in Venezuela. For boys, he suggests wooden rocking horses and/or “Ilaneros” (cowboys), and for girls … rag dolls. However, I doubt if politico Chavez was actually thinking about simpler times. Call him a dictator or a Democrat; he does seem a bit sexist when it comes to toys. Venezuela is in the throes of political turmoil, which contributed to the delayed shipment of toys. As Zulay and I sipped coffee and chatted in the auditorium, kids came in to participate in “toy-making” workshops and the United Community Center Youth Cuatro Ensemble arrived to perform. Images of the exquisite toys flashed by on a nearby television screen. Despite the cancellation of the opening, the mood was upbeat and the room sparkled with decorated trees. This is a wonderful facility and worth a visit anytime. Later in the evening, a friend and I […]
Dec 10th, 2007 by Judith Ann Moriarty
Art vs. Craft
After seven rounds, nationally-recognized Art vs. Craft has become a Milwaukee institution – by way of minimally institutional principles. Also an anomaly: over 75 progressively-minded, “new wave” artists, crafters and designers will be vending their handmade and independent wares – just in time for the holiday feeding frenzy.
Dec 1st, 2007 by Amber Herzog
An American Portrait
Art and social commentary have always been kissing cousins. In a sense, all art is social commentary, as it reflects artists’ views of the world they inhabit. Whether that reflection is viewed in a straight mirror or distorted like a fun-house mirror is the choice of the artist. In Running the Numbers: An American Portrait, Chris Jordan set out to “look at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics.” Each large image represents a specific statistic in visual format: one depicts fifteen million sheets of office paper, representing five minutes of paper usage in America. The stacks of paper tower and wobble like something out of Dr. Seuss’ nightmares. The artist’s hope is that the visual impact of “seeing” these statistics will make the way we live and the vast, ever-increasing complexity of American society accessible to individuals. His thought is that the enormous numbers in most statistics are incomprehensible. What, exactly, does 3.6 million SUV sales a year look like? Our brains can’t fathom it; the numbers are too large. But a picture created out of all the Denali nameplates sold in a year, arranged in pointillist fashion to recreate the peaceful mountain scene used in Denali commercials, has an impact. Looking at each individual name plate, you are struck by the enormity of that number in a way that simply reading it can’t accomplish. The piece is titled “Denali Denial,” in an extension of that social commentary. If everyone drove such a vehicle, there would be no more peaceful mountain scenes of crisp air and fresh water. My favorite piece of the exhibition is called “Painkillers.” In it, 213,000 Vicodin pills swirl around a center point, a maelstrom of small, white ovoid shapes. It’s like they’re circling the drain, about to go the through the tubes and hit rock bottom. And at the same time, it’s like being high, unable to control what’s going on and letting it all just swirl around you, content to be passive. The number of pills in the composition is equal to the number of emergency room visits every year related to the abuse or misuse of prescription painkillers. Running the Numbers: An American Portrait opened at the UWM Union Art Gallery on November 15, 2007 and will run through December 14, 2007. The gallery’s hours and upcoming events can be found on its website, http://www.aux.uwm.edu/Union/events/gallery/.
Nov 28th, 2007 by Ryan Findley
Time Machine
Three days after listening to Russell Bowman’s lecture at the Milwaukee Art Museum, I drove with a friend to re-visit the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) in Sheboygan. Bowman, the former Executive Director of MAM, spoke so eloquently and in-depth about when and how MAM’s “folk art” collection came to fruition; it seemed the perfect excuse to take another look at JMKAC’s collection of art, specifically Sublime Spaces & Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Art, which runs until January 2008. Let’s forget about labels for the time being. Whether you choose to refer to work produced by self-taught artists as “folk,” “outsider,” or “visionary,” bear in mind that the distinctions overlap more often than they divide. Blurred boundaries can be a good thing. Sunday, November 11 may not have been the best day to travel north, though my friend and I fortunately dodged the crowds rushing to Lambeau in massive vehicles bound for the Packer-Vikings game. The upside was finding JMKAC virtually empty, so we more or less had the glorious place to ourselves. There is no admission fee and on that day, parking was certainly not a problem. My travel companion, self-taught artist Jilan Glynn, lives in a tiny Walker’s Point home resembling an art installation. She uses a cane to get around these days, but not just any old cane. She made hers, and it was a perfect accessory for a perfect day. Walking through the galleries is somewhat akin to entering a voluminous tent where a circus is underway. Step right up, folks. Don’t be afraid. What you are about to see is not an illusion. With twenty-one artists represented, artists from here, there, and everywhere, you’d expect to feel claustrophobic, because many of the artists produced massive figurative works originally intended for “natural” environments such as yards and wide open spaces. Thanks to the excellence of JMKAC’s curatorial staff, though, each artist’s work clearly has its own space and never seems isolated. Nothing is crowded or crammed awkwardly. The interior architecture embraces the collection. Intricate, concrete constructions lead to stately clusters of figures fashioned from fabrics and clay before giving way to the light and airy wire fantasies of the wildly prolific Emery Blagdon. Standing there, I wondered what it might be like to live inside of a delicate web spun by the mind of an artist. My friend remarked that she wished there was a fan blowing nearby, so she could see the slender objects move. When we looked skyward to pieces suspended from the ceiling, indeed, some were moving, but ever so gently, in the whispering air currents. A fan would have been a travesty! In his lecture, Russell Bowman remarked that sometimes when the work of self-taught artists is removed from its natural environment to an institutionalized setting, it acquires another meaning. I agree with his statement, but such is not the case with this outstanding exhibit, which avoids being “precious.” At the risk of sentimentalizing the entire experience, it did […]
Nov 16th, 2007 by Judith Ann Moriarty
The Art of Work
By Kerensa Edinger Milwaukee already has an art museum that in itself is a feat of engineering, but a museum dedicated to the art of engineering is another thing altogether. It may seem an anomaly, but we now have one of those, too. The new Grohmann Museum, on the campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), is home to Man at Work: The Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection, the largest and most comprehensive of its kind. From agriculture to alchemy, coal mining to tax collecting, the approximately 700 paintings and sculptures display the vast breadth and evolution of human industry. With few exceptions, the artwork comes from the private collection of Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, an MSOE Regent, Milwaukee businessman and avid collector. Grohmann grew up in Germany, where he would often visit his grandfather’s marble processing business and quarry in Silesia (now part of Poland). In watching the stonecutters and sculptors toil to select and transform their raw materials, he developed an admiration for the beauty of work. To Dr. Grohmann, work is an essential, evolving aspect of human progress. Currently the chairman and president of Milwaukee’s Aluminum Casting and Engineering Company, which makes high-volume aluminum components for the automotive industry, Dr. Grohmann began his extensive art collection in the 1960s. Grohmann and his wife, Ischi, have long contributed to scholarships for MSOE students and donated funds to buy the property for the Kern Center, MSOE’s health and wellness facility, just a block from the museum. In the same philanthropic vein, Grohmann donated his collection for the purpose of establishing a museum and provided the funds to purchase and renovate the building that would house it. Constructed in 1924, the three-story, 38,000 square-foot concrete structure was home first to an automobile dealership, Metropolitan Cadillac, and then later occupied by the Federal Reserve Bank until 2004. To fit the needs of the Federal Reserve Bank, the building had relatively small windows and secure, anonymous entrances. MSOE purchased the structure in 2005; demolition and renovation began in September of 2006. Uihlein-Wilson, the project’s architects, kept the small windows –ideal for allowing in just enough light to preserve the delicate artwork – but replaced the corner of the building at Broadway and State with a glass cylindrical atrium capped by an open metalwork dome. Soaring over the museum’s entryway is the 700-square-foot mural, its two hemispheres, Vulcan’s Forge and Great Minds of History, linked by a spinning celestial wheel. Vulcan’s Forge reinterprets The Element of Fire, a 16th-century painting by a student of Francesco Bassano that depicts the Roman god Vulcan forging arrows for his son Cupid while Venus, combing her hair with one breast demurely bared, looks on. For his mural, the German artist H.D. Tylle lifted these primary figures from their cluttered, gloomy backdrop and set them against a simple landscape of rolling hills and blue sky. He used live models and new costumes to paint the figures, transforming the placid, stylized originals into striking creatures of flesh and blood. The […]
Nov 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
A Vision Defined
Nov. 3 – Dec. 1 Opening Reception: Nov. 3, 6-9pm A year ago, Whole Foods Market opened to much hoopla and artist Matthew Kirk’s work was selected to add some “local flavor” to the sprawling food emporium. The installation of his work, arranged by Hotcakes Gallery proprietor Mike Brenner, went off without a hitch. It was removed shortly thereafter. Whole Foods explained “it didn’t fit Whole Foods’ Corporate image.” However, it is a good match for Hotcakes, a gallery at 3379 N. Pierce St. in Riverwest, known for innovative and quality exhibits. Kirk’s solo event, his second at this venue, opens with a reception on Saturday, November 3, and runs through December l. In his artist statement for hotcakesgallery.com, he says he “makes pictures to convey the sense of loss and aimlessness that I feel from growing up in a society that has only one vision, and one place, for what an American Indian is, or should be.” His biography notes he was born in Arizona on a Navajo Indian reservation. But need we feel sentimental about that? Painting a Hat, 1914. Edward Curtis. I’ve seen the paintings and prints of Karl Bodmer and George Catlin, and nostalgic photographs by Edward Curtis, and though they depict American Indians, the makers of the art are non-Indians on what smacks of a sentimental journey. However, the images are gorgeous and are important in the history of art making. In the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Bradley Collection, there used to be (and I hope there still is), a painting (Untitled, 1976) by Fritz Scholder, the first artist to paint American Indians surrounded by flags, beer cans and cats – a big leap from the formal portraits produced by Curtis in the early twentieth century. Scholder’s work intrigued me, not because he was an American Indian, or because his painting depicts an American Indian. What intrigued me was his bold palette and broad painterly strokes, so typical of the unfettered art world of the ’70s. Indian in the Snow, 1972. Fritz Scholder. A few years ago, I saw the paintings of Shonto Begay at the Phoenix Art Museum. His website identifies him as a Navajo artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from California College of Arts and Crafts, practicing since 1983. I emailed him about the Hotcakes exhibit and asked for permission to use one of his images. He replied thusly: “I have no problem helping a fellow Navajo showing far from home or anywhere … It is an interesting situation being a Native visual artist, and how we view ourselves. Marginalized and anthro material even in our most creative and free expression. Anyway, Curio or not, we love what we do and hope to continue.” “Curio. Marginalized and anthro material.” Kirk and Begay have never met, but it sounds like they share similar thoughts about “loss and aimlessness.” Kirk’s artist statement expands on this by saying it comes from “growing up in a society that has only one vision, and one place, for […]
Oct 29th, 2007 by Judith Ann Moriarty
SITE unveils Fall 2007 installations
Much of Milwaukee’s art revival is concentrated in the condo-ready Third Ward, so it seems a brave feat that a two-block stretch – beginning at the struggling, yet bustling 3500 block of West North Avenue – is seeing a revival of its own. It’s strange and wonderful to see art and vitality on an arterial street that doesn’t share the business or attention of its East Side and Wauwatosa bookends and this installation, organized by IN:SITE, purveyors of public art, features artists Laura Gorzek, Chris Murphy and Kasia Drake. The untitled exhibit opened on October 27, and each of the three installation promises to provoke and inspire. “The thing about public art that I don’t always like is when it advocates a certain point of view,” says Laura Gorzek, a photography-based artist currently attending UWM. “I’d like to keep it more open-ended … letting [viewers] draw from their own experiences, their own level of dealing with something.” Gorzek’s piece, Surface v. Secret, incorporates elements of her photographic works on four vinyl-constructed banners across a large 8-by-24 foot billboard at 3615 W. North Ave. With her artwork she hopes to address women’s identities and self-perception – what is apparent and what lies hidden. Each piece demands multiple viewings to grasp the complex, layered narrative thread. “I thought it would be interesting to try this – most of what I do is more intimate and private. So juxtaposing this to a public space, it’s like making private life more universal,” says Gorzek. Chris Murphy’s piece, Choros, has been gestating for awhile. Murphy watched day after day since last summer as stories of Milwaukee’s homicides racked up on the news. “Someone else is shot again. I mean, I lived in Oakland, California and it didn’t seem this bad,” says Murphy – a master electrician, artist and father. “I’m a very 3-D person, and I thought about ways to put a face on it.” Choros – Greek for the chorus of masked players in tragic plays who offer background or commentary – is composed of scores of semi-translucent masks molded from the faces of real volunteer subjects. The gauzy masks, made of quick-drying water-based resins, are mounted on a maroon backdrop at 3611 W. North Avenue, each lit from behind by LEDs. They represent each person killed by gunshots in the city this year. At night the sculpture takes on an ethereal quality. “I just want to have [the viewer] acknowledge it as a first step,” says Murphy. “I want to humanize the whole thing instead of victims being a whole number. These people are not going to show up to the dinner table – they’re gone.” The final project, by fabric artist Kasia Drake and 11 collaborators, continues the international You Are Beautiful campaign started by anonymous artists in Chicago. It is installed in the long-standing Milwaukee Paint Store windows at 3532 W. North Avenue. YAB’s mission is to “reach beyond ourselves as individuals to make a difference by creating moments of positive […]
Oct 22nd, 2007 by Brian Jacobson
Every Picture Tells a Story
In becoming a photographer, one makes a choice to be the teller of stories rather than the subject, witness to the deeds of others, a visual historian to a particular moment in time Milwaukee photographer Jim Herrington has stories of his own, of course, but what fascinates is his body of work – and that’s the way he wants it. He has a gift for capturing the essence of his subjects, preferring native settings over studios and just shooting until he captures that perfect moment. “It’s like writing a song. Sometimes it’s there from the beginning and you have to get out of the way and let it happen.” To peruse Herrington’s portfolio is particularly delightful for lovers of American music. There’s almost nobody he hasn’t shot, and he has stories to tell about the rest. He also climbs and has incredible pictures, not so much of mountains, but of mountaineers. Something of a dreamer himself, he gravitates towards others like him, recording their visages for posterity and his own collection. Herrington will show work on Gallery Night at Cedar Gallery, upstairs at 326 N. Water St. But what you won’t get on October 19 is a sense of the stories he’s amassed along the way; how his photos came to be, a sense of the person behind each still image. Some of those stories are told here, in his words; a few others are on his website at jimherrington.com. The rest are his own – as it should be. VS
Oct 12th, 2007 by Vital Archives
Martin Ramirez at MAM
Martin Ramirez is an enigma. For decades, he was classified as one of the three greatest “outsider” artists of contemporary American art, but next to nothing was known about him. In the last ten years, two dedicated biographers have beaten back the darkness surrounding the facts of Ramirez’s life, but this endeavor has lead to other questions. Ramirez was born in the Jalisco region of Mexico in 1895. In 1925, like many others — then and now — he immigrated to the United States to find work. He worked on the railroad in Northern California for five years, sending money home to his wife and four children in Mexico. In 1930, Ramirez was arrested for erratic public behavior, and ultimately institutionalized, first in Stockton and then Dewitt State Hospital. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and lived the rest of his life in the institution, where he died in 1963. Most of these facts were not known when Ramirez was categorized as an outsider artist in the 1970s. It was thought he might have been born in Mexico, it was thought he might have died in the 1960s. It was widely thought that he was a deaf-mute, which is not accurate. The term “outsider artist” was coined to denote an artist that did not take part in the “art world” — one that did not exhibit, did not invite or assimilate criticism, did not discuss their art. An outsider artist might be thought of as someone who refused or was unable to think of themselves as an artist. However, along with basic biographical details of Martin Ramirez’s life, we have learned in recent years that he did exhibit during his lifetime. A professor at Sacramento State College visited Ramirez often and arranged for his art to be shown, both in solo exhibitions and as part of group shows, on both coasts. Ramirez was critiqued. He had visitors in Dewitt that came to see him to discuss his art. One must wonder if Ramirez did think of himself as an artist, especially towards the end of his life. All he had was the hospital, and his drawings. All historical considerations and controversies aside, though, it cannot be denied that Ramirez had a vision of some sort. He was driven to create, whether or not he was an “artist” in classical terms. His drawings, on bits of paper pieced together with a glue made of potato and his own saliva, in crayon and colored pencils and whatever else the staff of the hospital had lying around, have a decidedly dreamlike quality. Viewing them, one enters a surreal realm of horses and trains and women wearing crowns. Everything is stylized, and it’s unclear how much of that is due to the fact that Ramirez was drawing from memory after being in an institution for 30 years, and how much of that is due to his schizophrenia. My favorite of his general themes are the trains and tunnels. He does variations; there are a few […]
Oct 5th, 2007 by Ryan Findley
Shoot-out at the corner of Superior & Russell
Artist Jimmy von Milwaukee (JVM) has had his share of ups and downs as a gallerist known for hot times in colorful venues around town, for example his hit-and-run stint as the proprietor of the moveable feasts like Leo Feldman, River Rat Gallery (formerly staged in narrow alleys) and, lest you forget, his annual irreverent Xmas Craft Show. 2007 wasn’t so hot for JVM, who battled AIDS and coped with the death of his dog Spot, who could jump through hoops and often entertained during his master’s wild soirees. Call him a “survivor” – JVM is back at it, this time to curate a River Rat Gallery Night & Day exhibit (Cowboys & Indians), opening October 19 (through January 3/08) at the Palomino, 2491 S. Superior St., in Bay View. Gallery Day can be dull, but if you arrive at 10 a.m. and stick it out, you can rustle some brunch grub. Jimmy Von Milwaukee at the Palomino I’ve known JVM for several decades and early-on wondered about his sanity, and the sanity of the artists he exhibited. Were they eccentrics hankering for publicity, or were they bona-fide artists seeking a place to call their own? In retrospect, I believe they were a bit of each. Despite, or more likely because of his audacious approach to art, JVM managed to charm the late great art critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, James Auer, and the media has been feasting on him ever since. He’s 51 now and his edges have softened a bit – but only a bit. Some see him as Milwaukee’s “Andy Warhol.” That may be a stretch, but Warhol was no slouch when it came to cowboys and Indians. Andy Warhol, Double Elvis, 1963 So what can you expect when the exhibit kicks up dust at the Palomino during that most revered of events – Gallery Night & Day? Will it be just another “outsider artist” show, or will it rise above that useless label, a label more or less put to rest when Miracles of the Spirit: Folk, Art, and Stories from Wisconsin, a major book, was published in 2006. One of the artists who received full coverage in Miracles, Bob Watt, will make his Palomino debut with paintings of Indians. There will be an interpretation of Brokeback Mountain and a Warholian salute to Roy Rogers by printmaker Randy James, a hand-crafted “Smallpox Blanket” by Chris Ward, photographs of cattle castration and branding by James Brozek, plus more stuff for your saddlebags: Heather and Jerome Voelske’s cowboy-themed glass items installed on the interior of the north facing bank of windows, Rebecca Tanner’s soft-sculpture Winchester rifles, paintings by Lemonie Fresh, and a sculpture by Matt Fink, known in these parts for his stinging social commentary. JVM has legions of fans and a tendency to exhibit too much work, and the Palomino is already awash with cowboy kitsch, but maybe in this case, more will be more. I’m betting on it. “Cowboy” from a working ranch, Mimbres, New […]
Sep 25th, 2007 by Judith Ann Moriarty
Temporary Beauty
The phrase “art on wheels” conjures images of taxi billboards, tour vans with flaming skulls and purple ponies, fancy ice cream trucks with neon graffiti and occasionally even cleverly wrapped buses. But look a little further – specifically, further down – and these words might also encompass another, much more fleeting form – skateboard deck art. Primarily placed on the flip side of skateboard decks, these graphics are unnoticeable until the skater gives a peek of paint and sticker via a kickflip or railstand. Although it’s tough to appreciate a deck artistically while in motion, decks have still garnered appreciation for their intense graphics that are political, religious, gender-infused; smacking culture around with a flippant force that ranges from the shocking to the quirky and is seldom dull. For this reason, skateboard decks are becoming a focus for many an art gallery in the last few years, forcing them to stop rolling and stay put, fascinating many an art aficionado who might not otherwise encounter a seven-ply piece of North American maple on wheels. It’s authentic American art in its essence, with many of the artists being skaters themselves. Most involved in deck art start at an early age, while they are still learning how to drop onto a board and roll. Twenty-year-old Milwaukee skater and illustrator for Stuck Magazine, Huey Crowley, is a perfect example. “I started messing around with deck art when I was in 7th grade, and I made my first actual attempt for Black Market Skateboards when I was a junior in high,” he explains. “The deck was called ‘Fear of a Black Market Planet’ and had all the members of Public Enemy on it.” His art made it all the way to Japan to be mass-produced. A technical issue kept it from release, but it was enough to light Crowley’s fire. “From then on I was always making stuff for skateboard companies. Skater artists like Ed Templeton really psyched me up to do skateboard art. It’s nice to be able to go out and skate, and when you’re done you can come home and still keep the creativity flowing on a different scale.” Gene Evans of Luckystar Studio also started early in the mixing of skating and paint. “Skateboarding is just something we did in the trailer park I grew up in. I drew and painted on everything as a kid. I’ve always painted over existing artwork – something I still do to this day. I’ve been painting and trading painted decks since I was a kid [in the late 70s].” + Building a Better… Board Most young skaters start out on plain decks – or ‘blanks’ – because they cost less. “The more bland or boring decks (blanks too) are basically for people that just want to skate (or are poor like me),” Crowley explains. Mike ‘Beer’ of Beer City Skateboards owns a shop in Milwaukee that offers both decks with graphics and blanks. Beer said that his blank decks are about $15 – […]
Jul 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
VITAL’S 2007 Photo Contest Winners
I think photography as the America of “Art.” It is not a perfect analogy; photography doesn’t arrest undocumented artworks and detain them indefinitely, nor is it engaged in an endless quest to start wars against developing art forms whilst alienating and disenfranchising photographs at home. Photographs are sometimes bought and sold to the highest bidder, but that’s not what I mean, either. Photography is a highly democratic art form. Not everyone is born with the fine motor skills to learn how to draw or the craftsmanship necessary to sculpt or carve wood. But most people can figure out how to press a button on a camera. With a light meter and a little practice, even a manual camera is intuitive enough to understand. The ever-expanding accessibility of digital equipment has even made it possible to eliminate the complicated and costly process of developing your own prints. Now all you need is a printer, or someone whose printer you can use and – voilà – a masterpiece. The ease of photography invites experimentation and ingenuity. Like America, nothing is guaranteed – not everyone can afford those fancy macro lenses, and not everyone has an eye for composition – but photography strives for equality of opportunity. And frankly, that makes the old institutions a little bit nervous. If you were an oil painting, you’d be nervous, too. Look at what happened to Great Britain. And in the grand scheme of things, photography is a pretty young way to make art, and even though a photograph is one of the world’s most powerful tools for telling a story or conveying an image, photography is still fighting for its credibility in the art world. Not everyone trusts photography. It’s too instant. It’s too mechanical. The artist is too far removed from the art. Or so it is still sometimes said. This year, in the spirit of opportunity, we awarded two different awards for each category – Best Professional and Best Amateur. The judges – Cori Coffman, Executive Director of the Eisner Musuem of Art and Design; Deone Jahnke, a local professional photographer who works all over the country and Sonja Thomsen, adjunct professor at MIAD and head of Milwaukee’s Coalition of Photographic Arts – swore to be fair and impartial administrators of their duties. They rated each photograph blind before the law (well, they could see, but it was anonymous) and on video camera themselves, for all to witness at our second Random Exposure opening on June 14 at the Eisner, which will include over 60 of our favorite entries, democratically displayed for your viewing enjoyment. There will also be music, food and more. Look for details on page 18. In your winners, you will see testament to the radical and boundless fruits of this art for the people: color, shadows, truth, comedy, tragedy, apathy and beauty. PORTRAIT BEST IN SHOW Best Professional Jessica Kaminski “Girl in Doorway” Jessica Kaminski received her BFA in Fine Art Photography from MIAD in 2001. Since then, she […]
Jun 1st, 2007 by Amy Elliott
