Art Gaze

Jim Nutt exhibit sparks new admiration

Written by Debra Brehmer May 19, 2011

“Lippy” by Jim Nutt. – Photo: Courtesy

I never liked Jim Nutt’s work. Emerging in the early 1960s in Chicago as part of what became the Hairy Who movement, Nutt spent two decades or more making cartoony paintings, often on shiny surfaces (Plexiglas or metal). Bad boy compositional antics of distorted, kooky figures with orifices, sexual peculiarities, hairy armpits, amputated limbs, warts and wounds felt like one-part carnival, one-part bored school boy doodles. The paintings held a strange set of double offenses – too goofy and too fussily crafted.

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Artwatch

Written by Kat Murrell Apr 21, 2011

A pair of new exhibitions tell a tale of two art schools. One is big, cool, austere, intellectual. The other is crowded, colorful, boisterous, street-smart. Welcome to the future of art.

First, the UWM Peck School of the Arts Spring MA/MFA Exhibition II. The show is on view in Inova/Arts Center, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd., behind Mitchell Hall on the corner of Kenwood and Downer Avenue. It’s a concentrated dose of work by four artists who, while completing grad school, already have a good deal of experience and international exposure behind them.

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Artwatch

Written by Debra Brehmer Apr 7, 2011

For a sweet show to finish off your weekend, stop by the Bay View Brew Haus, 2535 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., for this year’s “Peep Show.”

Spring Gallery Night is April 15-16 in a variety of galleries and businesses in East Town, downtown, the Third Ward and points beyond. This edition of the quarterly event will feature 57 participating venues – a lot of art to see.

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Walker’s Point exhibit highlights labor struggle

Written by Kat Murrell,
Contributing writer Apr 7, 2011

Carlos Cortez’s work is shown with contemporary artists who also reflect on social justice and labor issues. – Photo: Courtesy

Walker’s Point Center for the Arts relocated to its new home last year and has blossomed as a vital center in the community.

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Artwatch

Written by Kat Murrell May 19, 2011

From David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” – Photo: Courtesy

A head’s up for a very important art event coming our way. On May 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Milwaukee Art Museum, one of the curators from the controversial exhibition “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” will discuss the show and the issues it stimulated. Jonathan D. Katz, chair of the visual studies doctoral program at SUNY Buffalo, is probably the country’s foremost LBGT scholar in the field of art history.

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Artwatch

Written by Kat Murrell Mar 24, 2011

The green buds of spring are soon to pop forth, and likewise Milwaukee’s art scene is popping with new shows and events.

Surrealist suburbanite painter Steve Wellman is featured in “Layers & Sediment” at the Kunzelmann-Esser Lofts Gallery, 710 W. Historic Mitchell St. A preview on Thurs., March 31, 6 - 8 p.m. surveys, this Montana-based artist from a mid-career perspective. The exhibition and associated scholarship form the master’s thesis of UWM art history graduate student Susan Barnett.

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A hair-raising benefit

Written by Michael Muckian,
Contributing writer Apr 7, 2011

Anthony Santini, of Hybrid Salon, created this hairstyle for “Hair Affair 2009.” It represented environmental degradation. – Photo: Courtesy

Some of Madison’s most original artists will stand head and shoulders above the crowd at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art on April 28.

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Smithsonian chief defends removal of video

Written by Louis Weisberg Jan 20, 2011

Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough defended his decision to remove an artist’s video that depicted ants crawling on a crucifix from an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, saying a controversy over the short clip threatened to overshadow its first major exhibition on gay themes in art history.

Critics had blasted Clough’s decision as verging on artistic censorship while members of Congress and a Catholic group had complained that the video was sacrilegious.

Ruth Grotenrath and Schomer Lichtner
Inextricably linked yet independent

Written by Kat Murrell May 5, 2011

Ruth Grotenrath’s “Still Life with Fan.” – Photo: Elaine Erickson Gallery

Ruth Grotenrath and Schomer Lichtner are two artists who are inextricably linked. Closely associated with art in Milwaukee from the ’30s through the last decades of the 20th century, they lived in the city as well as on a farmstead by Holy Hill. Although married to each other, they were decidedly independent as artists.

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Artwatch

Written by Debra Brehmer Mar 10, 2011

Here’s the deal. You can stay in town and visit a few art exhibits that will be nice addendums to lunch. Tom Uttech’s quintessential wilderness paintings at Tory Folliard, 233 N. Milwaukee St., through April 9, will possibly wow you, prior to a pastrami sandwich. Uttech is the state’s muse of all things wild and endangered. He’s the old master of the untamed: sunset hues and distraught animals, the animus in the wind of our souls.

You could then tool down to Elaine Erickson gallery and check out Ken Kwint’s new show – large ab-ex paintings, layers of drips and drabs in pleasantly active fields of mid-range hue.

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When making art is
an act of ‘making do’

Written by Debra Brehmer,
Contributing writer Apr 21, 2011

“Samuel Williams: Instructions” is on display through June 19 at inova/Kenilworth, 2155 N. Prospect. Hours are Wednesday-Sunday noon-5 p.m. and Thursday until 8 p.m. The work above is from a prior installation. – Photo: Courtesy

British artist Samuel Williams, through e-mail, fax or a phone call, is transmitting daily instructions for the building of sculptures at inova/Kenilworth, 2155 N. Prospect. The show, “Samuel Williams: Instructions,” opened on April 1 with an empty gallery. The first set of instructions arrived via e-mail that day and called for the making of a giant marble run. Here is an excerpt from the instructions:

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Artwatch

Written by Kat Murrell Feb 24, 2011

If you’re looking for some art experiences outside of the usual places, here are some interesting venues to explore:

Art Bar, 722 E. Burleigh St., is the place to be Thursday, Feb. 24, for an illustrated talk called “Let the good times roll? A short history of alcohol in art,” presented by Graeme Reid, assistant director of the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Witty, irreverent and deeply insightful, Reid explores images of imbibing in modern art. The event is presented by Portrait Society Gallery (director Debra Brehmer is a WiG contributor) and Fine Line Magazine. Reid speaks at 6:30 p.m.

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