State Artists Reinterpret, Reintroduce History in ‘Look Here’ Exhibition
It features the work of 14 Wisconsin artists and their reinterpretations of artifacts from the UWM Libraries.
MILWAUKEE _ World history and imaginative artistry collide in a summer collaboration involving the UWM Libraries, UWM’s Peck School of the Arts, RedLine Milwaukee and Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. The exhibition “Look Here” runs June 28 through Sept. 16 at Villa Terrace, 2220 N. Terrace Ave. It features the work of 14 Wisconsin artists and their reinterpretations of artifacts from the UWM Libraries that span centuries and continents, from Milwaukee’s turn-of-the-century south side to colonial India.
“Look Here” artists had nearly one year to search through the maps, manifests, photographs and other items archived in the collections of the UWM Libraries. Each artist studied a single item or collection, then reinterpreted it, giving the items a wider platform and a new life many decades, or in some cases centuries, after the originals were created. Images of the originals will be featured alongside their modern reinterpretations.
“We keep these cultural heritage items as evidence of the past, to document and provide access to our history,” says Ann Hanlon, head of Digital Collections in the UWM Libraries. “This is especially true in our UWM Archives and Special Collections, related to the history of Milwaukee and of UWM, and our American Geographical Society Library. We’ve digitized a small fraction of our collections, making over 140,000 objects freely available online. We’re excited to see how artists use and interpret this rich resource in new ways.”
The exhibition is free with the price of admission to Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. UWM faculty, staff and students can enter Villa Terrace and the “Look Here” exhibition free of charge with a UWM ID through Sept. 16. The exhibition is open during Villa Terrace’s regular hours of operation: Wednesday 1-5 p.m., Thursday 1-8 p.m. and Friday-Sunday 1-5 p.m.
Marc Tasman, Clayton Haggarty and Nirmal Raja contributed to “Look Here,” and their projects are explained below. They and other artists are available for interviews and photos in advance of the exhibition’s opening. Contact Ann Hanlon to make arrangements.
Cars Stop Here
Artist and UWM Senior Lecturer Marc Tasman and artist and UWM alumnus Clayton Haggarty are reinterpreting a photograph taken by Milwaukee photographer Roman Kwasniewski around 1920 of a truck smashed into a storefront on what is now Becher Street. The photo was taken for insurance purposes, but its location in the libraries’ Milwaukee Polonia collection – 32,000 images chronicling Milwaukee’s Polish community and history – prompted the artists to explore themes of identity and immigration then and now.
“The project is, in part, about society today and how civilized or uncivilized we’ve become; we’re looking at issues of immigration and acceptance and community,” Tasman says. “Part of what we’re interested in is the trauma of the journey of the immigrant. We see it today with the Syrian refugees risking everything to get here. And then they get here and have these new traumas happen.”
Vergence: An Orientalist Dystopia
Artist and UWM master’s alumna Nirmal Raja incorporated designs from “The Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details,” circa 1890, and the “jaali”, an elaborately designed stone or latticed screen. “It’s been used in South Asian cultures for many, many centuries as a device for gender segregation, a device for power,” Raja explains. “So, how do you take something so beautiful and so intricate and decorative and infuse it with meaning that is relevant to the present, and investigate what’s going on around us now?”
Nirmal printed a list of recent hate crimes she researched onto vinyl sheets, then cut patterns sourced from the Jeypore portfolio onto them. The vinyl creations will be pasted onto the glass panes around one of Villa Terrace’s sleeping porches. This deceptively decorative screen will frame a curated collection of orientalist images from the American Geographical Society Library and Special Collections, digitally displayed as part of the installation.
About The UWM Libraries
The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries advance the campus mission of teaching, learning, research and service by providing scholarly resources and services. We facilitate the discovery and exchange of ideas, and the creation, preservation, and sharing of knowledge. The Libraries help develop information-competent users and connect our community of users with information and knowledge to succeed in a diverse society.
About UWM
Recognized as one of the nation’s 115 top research universities, UW-Milwaukee provides a world-class education to 25,000 students from 91 countries on a budget of $653 million. Its 14 schools and colleges include Wisconsin’s only schools of architecture, freshwater sciences and public health, and it is a leading educator of nurses and teachers. UW-Milwaukee partners with leading companies to conduct joint research, offer student internships and serve as an economic engine for southeastern Wisconsin. The Princeton Review named UW-Milwaukee a 2018 “Best Midwestern” university based on overall academic excellence and student reviews, and the Sierra Club has recognized it as Wisconsin’s leading sustainable university.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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