Madonna & Child Interpreted

Madonna & Child, Pacia Sallomi

The idea is not unusual: choose a classic theme - in this case Madonna and Child - and invite artists to render an interpretation of it. That is the premise of a new show opening on Friday, gallery night, at the H2O Gallery at 221 N. Water St. in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. But if the idea is conventional, the results are anything but.

The interpretations range from traditional to iconoclastic; the styles from realistic to abstract. The mediums range from painting to sculpture to photography – to creative writing. The artists in the show include some for whom this is their first gallery exposure and others who have exhibited widely. Here at Arts Without Borders I love the whole concept!

Magic is the Child, William Zuback

If you go to see this show on Friday – and I recommend it – expect the unexpected. In the words of curator William Zuback, “The beauty of this exhibition is that it represents a wide visual and emotional spectrum of artistic representation and translation of this iconic subject.”

Although many of the works in the show either pay homage to or reinterpret the Christian theme, others reflect on the subject in a way that reveals its archetypal and universal aspects. Reverent treatments reside comfortably alongside works that explore the edges of orthodoxy and faith, or question our assumptions.

Oya and Virgen, Holley Bakich

The exhibition of visual art is accompanied by a catalogue that includes three dramatic literary interpretations of the theme written in response to the invitation. Below are excerpts from each. I hope they will motivate you to want to read them in their entirety.

“Hush, little baby. Don’t cry. Papa’s an iconoclast. But it’ll be alright. He carries a sledge hammer. It’s the tool of his trade. He sees an icon? He leaves behind shards. But don’t cry, little baby. It’ll be alright. Shards tell stories….” – from A Taboo Lullaby by David Press

“When I found out that Mary might not have conceived Jesus in the traditional way, I have to say I was rather disappointed. It put her further away from me than I had initially anticipated. Not getting pregnant out of love? Passion? No seduction? Bizarre forced entry, without a fight. I mean, really, what kind of a way is that to get pregnant? A stranger whispers into your ear? Blowing a Lilly into it? Really? A bit like rape, if you ask me, or maybe like ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’” – from Searching for Mary by Michelle PG Richardson

 “I was named after my mother, she and I sharing the same first and middle names of Mary Elizabeth, though everyone called her Beth. It was explained to me by my grandmother that Beth was her favorite name but, when it came to formally naming my mother, Elizabeth most certainly could not be placed in front of Mary. This was very curious to me and I asked her why she didn’t just name my mother Elizabeth Mary. “The Virgin always takes precedence,” she responded in a matter-of-fact tone. When I pressed her for more information, she gave me The Look. Translation: This discussion is over.” – from Life as Mary by Mary Dally-Muenzmaier

The discussion may have been over, but you know that’s not the end of the story!

Madonna & Child, Ellen Pizer

Proceeds from the sale of the exhibition catalogue go to benefit the Grand Avenue Club, which provides a variety of programs and opportunities for adults with mental illness. A thoughtful, diverse exhibition of art combined with a direct social benefit – it just gets better and better!

Full disclosure: a photograph from my Nicaragua Portfolios is included in this exhibit. It is only tangentially religious, but decidedly reverent.

Gallery H2O is at 221 N. Water St. (which is also Soup’s On!)

The show runs Oct. 21 – Jan. 13, 2012.

It will be open gallery night and day.

Friday 6 – 10 pm and Saturday 11 am – 2 pm.

Frigid Night makes for easy Gallery hopping in Milwaukee!

After the optimistic report Wednesday evening from the Cultural Alliance on the state of the “Creative Industries” in Southeastern Wisconsin (see previous post) it was especially rewarding to see the creative spirit alive and well among individual artists last night. Fortunately for the few of us who braved below zero wind chills, it was easy to breeze through normally crowded hubs like the Marshall Building. Unfortunately for the artists and galleries – and the missing art lovers – a plethora of diverse and worthy art went unseen. I hope you all went out on Saturday to make up for it! There was too much to see in one evening, so I went back for seconds myself.

There was so much good work on display all over that I’m going to break with my own routine and give only brief snapshots and one-liners in an attempt to provide a sense of the extraordinary diversity I managed to see. I hope to encourage y’all to extend gallery night and day into a month or two of visits! I invite you to click on the links to the galleries and artists to flesh out my brief observations.

Oroza
Architecture of Necessity

I started my “gallery night” early on Friday afternoon at Inova. I was delighted to have the chance to speak one-on-one with Cuban artist Ernesto Oroza and to get a personal tour by gallery director Nicholas Frank. Oroza’s work shows how the people of Havana  adapt to social and economic realities there. I liked it all, but the surprisingly elegant goblets made out of cast off plastic beverage containers were especially stunning.

Tory Folliard has curated a show appropriately called “Color Vibrations.” Its very distinctive bodies of work include supersaturated landscapes by Harold Gregor, restrained color field abstractions by Mark Ottens, and extravagantly elaborate ceramic and mixed media sculptures by Albert Benedict some of which look like wild combinations of bird bath and baptismal font.

MIAD is showing an excellent dual exhibit. “Tiny: Art from Microscopes...” demonstrates the power of nano-photography to transcend scientific underpinnings and become aesthetic. Who knew how beautiful impossibly tiny things could be? Also “Visual Analogies…” a collaborative installation by Michiko Itatani and Bergitta Weimer.

You gotta love spunk or what’s the point of being creative? For the full gallery night experience I like to step off the beaten track. Sometimes I find unexpected gems and last night things were consistently hitting the right notes. At Atrio, jewelry store on Water St., I met photographer David Schrimpf. I found his nighttime explorations with a camera moody and captivating.

Next door, at Gallery H2O/Soup’s On I always find a nice mélange of visual arts and, of course, Mary’s great soups. (I chose Packer chili this time – yum!) Shout out to Steven Yeo and Tara Bogart, who have work there.



Reginald Baylor
End Freeway - A Love Story...

  The Marshall Building – of course! I can’t do this place justice, but don’t miss these:

The self portrait show at Elaine Erickson.

The “Winter Chapel,” an installation of ceramics by Linda Wervey Vitamvas at the Portrait Society Gallery.

Merge Gallery’s latest tour de force installation that plays off Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon: “there’s someone in my head, but it’s not me.”

Reginal Baylor is always coming up with intriguing new work in his inimitable style.

The Fine Art Gallery, Gallery 218, Light Ideas Gallery, studio pottery – there’s something for everyone at the Marshall Building!

A group show at Katie Gingrass is especially exquisite decked out in “White.” My favorite was Jeff Margolin’s ceramic sculptures.



Adolf Rosenblatt
The Oriental Pharmacy...

Portraits by Virgi Driscoll gave me a welcome reason to revisit an old favorite: the Rosenblatt Gallery. I fall in love with the old familiar (now long gone) Oriental Pharmacy counter every time I venture upstairs. At nearby Gallery 326 I finally found a lively crowd as well as a fine photography show by Jessica Kaminski called “Layered Journey.”

I finally made it out of the Third Ward to visit the Pfister where Katie Musolf has been ensconced as Artist in Residence for nearly a year. Her studio nook off their main hallway is filled with drawings and paintings in various stages of completion. It’s definitely worth a visit before she packs it all up in a couple months. The quality of Katie’s output alone creates a natural draw, but in person she is so delightful that it’s easy to see why people line up to sit for their portraits in her cozy studio.

After that I headed south. It was closing night for a nice little show of non-objective abstractions called “Bridging the Gap” at the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center Gallery on South Second St.

Kyle Talbott
at BYO Studio

I discovered an enticing venue on KK in Bayview called the BYO Studio and Lounge. This place was packed – with people and art! I will need to revisit this in daylight.

After that it was late and I beat it home, but I went back downtown today to check out the Pritzlaff Building and was glad I did. Talk about diverse! People there who I knew included Shelby Keefe, Frank Juarez, and my neighbor, Jack Lake. Plenty of unfamiliar work, mostly paintings in a wide variety of styles, made it a pleasant discovery. This temporary group exhibit called “The Best from Open Canvas” organized by Good Knight Promotions made it clear that Milwaukee is so bursting with talent that established galleries just can’t handle it all!



Sally Duback
from the Best of Open Canvas

And to think, I just picked places at random. You might have gone out and found an equally dazzling array of artists in other Milwaukee galleries.

Portraits of Oaxaca at Gallery H2O

There’s something about Oaxaca, something hard to define, hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been there. Oaxaca is one of those places—I’ve been to a few—where, no matter how long it’s been since your last visit, you want to go back. I’ve only been once, too long ago now, and I’ve just seen a marvelous little exhibit of photographs that reminds me that I want to go back.

Oaxaca is one of the most diverse states in Mexico, with rugged terrains, the seacoast, and ancient cultures. Textiles, ceramics, the distinctive brightly painted wood carvings, and numerous other arts and crafts make it a paradise for aesthetes like me. The food…! Don’t get me started. (Molé sauces to die for!)

Ah, but the people…. It is the beautiful Oaxacan people that Milwaukee photographer Claire Ruzicka focuses on, quite literally. Her carefully composed and exquisitely printed black and white images show the people at ease amid the bustle and patterned backgrounds of daily life. Reading from the accompanying text, I found it remarkable to learn that she had been there but a short while. The comfort that her subjects display in front of her camera usually requires the kind of bond that doesn’t happen quickly.

I happened across this exhibit at Gallery H2O in Milwaukee’s Third Ward (221 N. Water St.) when I stopped in for some of Mary’s excellent soup—the gallery’s alter ego is Soup’s On. It’s always fun to stop in and see the eclectic variety of work on the walls there. Make sure you try the homemade soup while you’re there, too! And say hi to Mary for me. Tell her Eddee sent you.

P.S. Ruzicka's photos will be on display through Oct. 8, so there's plenty of time to stop by.