Love and Money

Another tumultuous relationship: Venus, Goddess of Love, and Mars, God of War

Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640), Mars Disarmed by Venus, ca. 1610-1612

Say you’re in a relationship, it’s lovely, passionate, spicy…really, Valentine’s was only two weeks ago, surely memories last longer than chocolates?

Everything is wonderful, until the bottom drops out, something happens, and for the sake of an example, we’ll say it’s money. Financial problems erupt, it’s bad. What is the net effect on said relationship? Does the “kicking to the curb” ensue immediately? Do you lose all that you had because of these external storms? Or do you tough it out, and even find strength in lovely passionate spiciness?

What if that metaphor was about the Arts? Arts with a capital A – art, music, dance, literature and poetry, the fruits of creative souls produced by professionals whose mission in life is to make things that make you, dear reader/viewer, experience something out-of-the-ordinary. In that light, it makes us rather lucky, that these individuals largely sacrifice so much (job security, earning potential, health insurance) because they’re driven by a force to create things and ideas, and expose this labor for the public’s enjoyment, or for the public’s derision. That’s also gutsy.

But this relationship with the Arts, if we love it so much, and get so much from it, why is our emotional barometer so linked to money? The market drops, economy crashes, jobs are lost. Why are we not seeking solace and refuge in these places of art, performance, music and theatre? Granted, tickets can be terribly expensive for the best performance seats, but there are ways of getting discounts, through special deals or subscriptions (also read: commitment). Art museums and galleries offer us plenty for free, just plan your trip accordingly, and make the most of your time. Relax, absorb, think, unwind. It can be even better than a spa.

Maybe I’m far too idealistic about this, but the arts and humanities can be likened to a Greek chorus in our own unending drama; sometimes they take the center stage, sometimes they offer whispered asides, or give sharp perspective as tragedy or comedy unfolds. As long as we pay attention, and in the full spirit of a fruitful relationship, are engaged. Like love, there’s plenty of pleasure to be had, in the traces of the deftly-handled paintbrush that creates a face to last hundreds of years, and the singular fragile moment of music sustained in the air, the result of years of practice and refinement. There is solace and there is meaning.

Love and money are strange bedfellows, and always have been. Art is the unruly progeny of this union, and we need all three. They say don’t go to bed angry, and don’t kick love out of bed when money has issues.

~ KM Murrell

Winter Gallery Night Part 2: day

The adventure continues on gallery day, and as usual, with a different atmosphere. The Friday evening activities are permeated by a rather carousing atmosphere, as gallery going takes on the character of party hopping. Gallery Day, in contrast, tends to be quieter, with much more room for looking at art rather than people.

David Barnett Gallery’s current offerings include prints by Marc Chagall, early 20th-century Dutch artist Kees van Dongen, and a group entitled Latin American and Spanish Masters. The works by Chagall and van Dongen provided plenty to look at, but the most interesting part of the visit was the work Latin American and Spanish selection, especially the work of Uruguayan artist Ignacio Iturria. His large-scale, two-dimensional pieces on corrugated cardboard are sophisticated in image and execution, and earthy in their medium. The rough texture was mimicked in Iturria’s large oil painting, Relaciones Armoniosas, with horizontal ridges of paint rippling like wavy cardboard, playing an even rhythmic surface texture, and despite the overall tonality of charming blue, there’s a great deal of tension in the high-contrast three-dimensionality of highlights and black shadows. (Note: the exhibition dates for Latin American & Spanish Masters state that it closes on Jan. 10. Best to call ahead if you’re interested in seeing it).

Another place to see a group show with a great variety is Tory Folliard Gallery, this month showing Clare Malloy’s representations of single, simple objects in pastel and in paint. Items are situated in the center of small scale works, things such as a perfume bottle, a teacup, a cupcake, and are mysterious markers of identity, divorced from their original home and person; each a little lost but like beacons of particular taste and preference. Russ Vogt’s work, in comparison, is a Fauve-ish explosion of heavy paint and color on canvas and sculptures. In the East Gallery, an installation called Streetwise displays two- and three-dimensional works by a trio of self-taught artists, each divergent in their own particular style.

Clare Malloy, Pink Pearls, on view at Tory Folliard Gallery

Dean Jensen Gallery is currently showing a very interesting amalgamation of work. Through it’s a “regular” gallery space (i.e. lots of squared-off wall space and minimal furniture), this show has the feeling of walking through someone’s personal art collection – a few pieces from this artist, a few from that one, sculptures sprinkled throughout, and not unified by an overt theme or style.

Actually, the only unifying theme has nothing to do with art, but with commerce. The current works on view at Dean Jensen Gallery come with a price tag of less than $750, which means bargains throughout. This slashing of prices for paintings and such is a sign of the times, as the challenges of the economy are being reflected in a realm where aesthetic matters and sheer desire usually eclipse all else. There are many Milwaukee artists in the show, and well-represented are artists awarded with Mary Nohl Fellowships. Tyson Reeder, Scott Reeder, and Santiago Cucullu, past recipients of the award (1/23/08 clarification: Scott Reeder and Santiago Cucullu are past recipients of the Nohl Fellowship) have works on view, and Kevin J. Miyazaki, who was featured in the Nohl show this year, is also shown. A favorite find of mine were the works at the back of the gallery, the strange, gently aloof and haunting paintings by Rafael Salas. (Additional note: to see more work by Cucullu and Salas, check out the current exhibition at MIAD, Personal Cultures: New Art from Latin Americans).

Dean Jensen Gallery; sculptures by Jason Yi, another past Nohl Fellowship recipient, in the foreground.

Rafael Salas, The Woman Who Swallowed the Ocean, at Dean Jensen Gallery

Other galleries are following suit in terms of making the case for buying art in tough economic times. The DeLind Gallery of Fine Art is promoting an inventory reduction sale, and Cissy Peltz Gallery, currently installed with a richly eclectic variety mediums and artists, encourages visitors from far afield and those in the neighborhood to drop in and enjoy the works on view, and extends the idea of art not just as a purchase of an “thing,” but a physical presence that enhances and enriches one’s own living space.

But while the tumbles in the financial world are clearly having ripple effects on the larger, established galleries, the undercurrent of younger artists and exhibition spaces still seems to flow strongly. Jazz Gallery, a large storefront space in Riverwest, is showing a portfolio exhibition of works by UWM photography students. Biting commentaries on dreamy fairytales that lose their glow in harsh modern light are suggested in the Tales of Disenchantment series by Maegan Novak, and Trisha Buster shows large-format rural landscapes where the sharp clarity of detail reaching into the background gives an air of strange unreality to seemingly ordinary land.

Dock and Cattails, by Trisha Buster, at Jazz Gallery.  (for a far better reproduction, check out T. L. Buster’s site: http://tlbusterphotography.blogspot.com/2008/12/milwaukee-jazz-gallery-portfolio.html)

See more pictures from Gallery Night and Day on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/susceptibletoimages/

- KM Murrell

Winter Gallery Night 2009 Part I: night

We ran around in the freezing cold last night, and saw quite a number of fabulous things. I admit, I was surprised at the quantity of figurative works, but we’ll see what today’s selection brings before making a final call on that.

A highlight was White Whale Collective, showing the work of Emily Belknap (below top) and Julia Schilling (below bottom). Belknap uses fine wires, low horizons, and visual expanses to create works that are elegant, minimal yet humanistic, without becoming maudlin or academically stale. A lovely sense of composition and especially, materials.

Schilling’s wax tiles and letters piled in corners are like the potential of language, self-aware in their expressive potential, and have the feeling that they’re holding back, not quite giving in to the viewer in their statement. Formal in their disarray. It’s a powerful sort of reserve.

The Armoury Gallery has another strong showing in their Western States exhibition. The gorgeous lines of Colleen Sanders are quite pretty and patient. The drawings of constructed – I want to say worlds, but maybe microcosms is better – of Adrianne Watson are richly engrossing. She combines and piles images in these large-scale, two-dimensional works with a confidence that makes them concrete and substantive, though spatially complex and unreal. Admittedly, it was hard to get close and personal to each work, but looking over the shoulders of the multitude of people in the gallery was enough to indicate a strong body of work by the six artists in the show. An interesting moment – or extended moment, as we took our time stepping out of the fray, was the room installation (which also extends out to work on the fire escape) called  ‘Everything is Fine’ by Colin Matthes.   This space, about ten x seven feet, with drippy black paint scrawling the words ‘everything is fine.’ Overhead, a black circle spins – a wheel, of life? of fate? of a wagon? Disconcerting at first, but it sinks in after a while. Fine fine fine, in a rubber-room sort of way.

For more gallery night pictures, see flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34413954@N07/

• KMMurrell
  

Interaction and Pressing Czech Buttons

Act/React just closed recently at MAM; it was an extravaganza of new technology, bright colors, moving things, and cameras aplenty – very high tech, very fluid, very engaging in terms of the expectations the art casts on the visitor. For those of us in a contrarian mood and not up for dancing in front of the camera in order to have your silhouette thrown into a composition (rather à la early ipod ads), it become a space for watching the art and watching others – your fellow museum goers interacting and casting themselves as part of compositions.

There is much that is about “me,” or “you,” or “us” as a collective, inherent in our so-called ordinary lives. Reality TV and the ubiquity of social networks sites and devices tell us that whatever quotidian activities we’ve got going on, there is something interesting/distracting/or simply voyeuristic that someone out there wants to see.

(But here’s a thought – who/where is the absolutely most boring blog in the world? I mean, something that is REALLY about nothing? Seinfeld was on to something, as a show about nothing became brilliantly compelling and encompassing of everything in a superficially contemporary way. I digress greatly…)

About this idea of interactivity as a way of engaging with art – I think it’s also an attempt at making some sort of connection, emotion, or memory; to make it as easy as flipping a switch, engineering meaning through experience. But what is “meaning” really made of?

NPR recently aired a piece on museums and interactivity, and I don’t disagree that this is the way of the future, at least in the American museum environment. We like bells and whistles, novelties and anything new, shiny and sexy. Buttons, especially electronic blinky ones, are quite sexy. Here’s the NPR story:

Interactive Games Make Museums A Place To Play : NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99244253&sc=emaf

Pressing Czech Buttons

Speaking of buttons, there have been a few pressed with a new sculpture by David Cerny. His work, “Entropa,” was commissioned by the Czech government in honor of the recent shift of the EU presidency to their hands.

There are a few sly maneuvers in this work; rather than comprised of the efforts of 26 artists as originally expected, it’s all by Cerny. The imagery is a giant lampoon and scathing critique of member countries, exposing dysfunctions, stereotypes, and less-than-glamorous ideals and national identities.

Slideshow of sculpture & commentary from Times Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/template/2.0-0/element/pictureGalleryPopup.jsp?id=5516098&&offset=0&&sectionName=VisualArts

Times Online article
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article5512107.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2015164

World Focus (with links to artist’s blog and other commentaries)
http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/01/14/czech-artwork-creates-stir-across-europe/3603/