Madison full of art

I spent an art-filled day in Madison recently. Here are some snapshots and a taste for what's on exhibit now. Follow the links for more info, or better yet plan a trip over to Mad-town for some good art.

This new mural celebrating the unity of women on the Willy Street Coop was dedicated Friday evening. The mural was done by Panmela Castro (below), who is from Brazil. Castro is sponsored by Vital Voices around the Globe. Her work intends to remind us that women in many parts of the world suffer oppression. Extending the length of the building, the piece is certainly dramatic and beautiful, but that message isn't clearly evident in it.

The Willy Street Coop is at 1221 Williamson St. on the near east side of Madison.

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMOCA) has several exhibits to see. The featured exhibit is called One must know the animals. Drawn from the museum's collection, this is a large and diverse show that strays far from the typical wildlife art that might be expected from the title.  Read more. The exhibit runs through Aug. 19.

Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero, Wolf, courtesy MMOCA

The exhibit to which I was especially drawn was Within a Stone's Throw, by Cecelia Condit. The exhibit is dominated by a three-panel large screen video, but goes further. This is from the museum's website: "Although Condit is best known as a video artist, this exhibition signals her new immersion into the world of still imagery. A series of seven photographs complements Within a Stone’s Throw, each image a complex, digitally constructed composite of Lake Michigan and its environs. These works showcase the sublime beauty of the natural world, at once threatening and delicate, while addressing both the fragility and the timelessness of our planet." Read more.

This exhibit runs through Sept. 23.

Cecilia Condit, video still, courtesy MMOCA

While you're at MMOCA walk over to the adjacent Overture Center for a slew of smaller but engaging exhbits.

The top-floor James Watrous Gallery hosts a pair of very different bodies of work.

Milwaukee photographer James Brozek and art historian Debra Brehmer of Milwaukee's Portrait Society Gallery teamed up to create a portfolio of vintage photographs called Flowers by Livija. If you missed it at the Portrait Society, here's another chance to see the "hundreds of hauntingly beautiful still-life compositions, self-portraits, and images of the floral arrangements [Livija] created for her husband’s grave."

Courtesy Watrous Gallery

The other half of the duo couldn't be more dissimilar. "Lon Michels’s large, lavishly detailed figure paintings, landscapes, and still lifes are rich with art historical references, but their primary subject is his love affair with color and pattern."

Don't take the elevator back down after your visit to the Watrous Gallery. There are three discrete exhibits in each of the even smaller hallway spaces known collectively as the Overture Galleries. The short hallways are easily overlooked. They extend away from the central rotunda. Most people likely go there to find the restrooms. But if you go now you will find more intriguing art.

In Gallery 1 you will find At Your Service, which "presents the common domestic plate as a site for cultural investigation." Seven artists appropriate, alter, and re-interpret ceramic dinnerware. Read more. (Through Sept. 16.)

Courtesy Overture Galleries

Have you heard of "Alternography?" I hadn't heard the term before and I'm curious to know if "The Alternography Group" who comprise the artists in the Gallery 2 exhibit coined the term. Whether or not the term is new, the methods they use decidedly are not, and that is the point. Alternative techniques and processes, whether primitive cameras or darkroom printing methods (yes, some of them use darkrooms!), drive the creative output of this sub-group of the Center for Photography at Madison. More interesting to me than the use of alternative processes in themselves is the content of the show, entitled Trespass, which "explores three types of trespasses: trespass to person, trespass to property, and trespass to land." Read more. (Through Sept. 12)

Courtesy Overture Galleries

Gallery 3 hosts a more diverse collection entitled Once and Again, which "explores images and ideas related to symmetry." Read more. (Through Sept. 16.)

Courtesy Overture Galleries

Diverse trio of shows at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

Diana Parker, grade 12, Surreal

One of the three very different shows currently on display as you enter MMoCA from State Street is immediately visible through the glass wall on your left. Maybe it’s my years of experience in teaching, but I love seeing art made by young people and I’m always delighted when distinguished institutions like this one provide space and therefore support for children’s creativity. In a time of fiscal austerity (and, in my opinion, misguided priorities that demote the arts in education, if not eliminating them altogether) it is most important to proclaim artistic achievements in our schools. Young at Art opened March 20. It showcases the complete range – from kindergarten through grade 12 – students from the Madison Metropolitan School District. According to their website, “the exhibition is the result of a long-standing collaboration between MMoCA and the school district’s Fine Arts Department.” Long may it continue! The show runs through May 15.

Alfred Leslie, self-portrait

A small but delightful show drawn from the permanent collection is tucked away in the museum’s Henry Street Gallery. True Self: The Search for Identity in Modern and Contemporary Art “explores the ways artists have understood and conveyed the essence of the self—through facial expression, body language, dress, and the particulars of setting—in a selection of paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs.” I rarely tire of this fundamental genre and this show includes a wide variety of approaches to portraiture as well as the variety of media listed.

“The notion of the “self,” the essential quality that makes a person distinct from all others, is a core theme in modern and contemporary art. Its primary formats are the portrait and self-portrait, which focus on the identity and psychology of the model. For the artist, the true self is fluid, not fixed; layered, not clearly evident. The true self is both innate and determined by experience and culture. Never consistent, it is often self-contradictory.” True Self runs until June.

Bale, variant no. 17

The featured exhibition, Menagerie by Shinique Smith, fills the vast, open spaces of the second floor gallery. Her output is remarkable, not only for her facility with diverse materials and methods, but for how well they all integrate into a unified ensemble. There are nearly fifty installations that include paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings, and videos. Many of the pieces are mixed media assemblages of found materials. Bundles of cast off clothing are made into totemic sculptures, inspired by donations commonly made to African countries. Much of the show is composed of site-specific installations that combine the organic forms of these bundles with painting on the gallery walls. Their impact cannot be transferred to images online or in a gallery brochure. The show’s flamboyant visual energy could be overwhelming in a smaller space. With a less deft combination of concept and technique the work’s vibrancy might also threaten to swerve into pure sensual fantasy. But it packs a hefty emotional punch as well. 


In one video the artist herself becomes the bundle. Her face is never revealed, her identity hidden within the folds of fabric, as she struggles with the cords that will leave her bound and mute. You have until May 8 to check this one out. I heartily recommend it.

Shinique Smith, from Menagerie

For more information go to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Wisconsin Triennial at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

Details from "Love Disorder" by Bruce Charlesworth

The Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art opened on May 21st. The event hit all the right notes, literally and figuratively. The friendly museum staff was dressed in regulation black. The dramatic glass lobby/stairwell was graced with jazzy notes that stayed discretely in the background. The cash bar was elegantly appointed with slender stemware. The crowd was thick and bubbled with conversation. And, of course, there was the art—the evening’s raison d'être—which, true to form, was sufficiently high brow to satisfy the crowd in attendance.

It was a lively event and encouraging. In trying times it’s nice to know that art matters to so many people.

I enjoyed the show, which is strong and—in some ways—diverse. The museum’s catalogue describes it as “a survey of contemporary art… [that represents] the varied artistic directions Wisconsin-based artists explore on a daily basis.” It includes “collages, drawings, films, installations, paintings, performances, photographs, prints, sculptures, and videos.” Whew! But wait – there’s more: that long list of categories doesn’t begin to describe the broad range of styles that also are represented in the show. It is refreshing to see that the curators had neither a stylistic bias nor a penchant for the newest trendy medium.

The remarkable diversity does break down on some levels. Geographically, the “Wisconsin-based artists” skew towards Madison and Milwaukee. The work predictably leans to the academic, a character that’s consistent with at least the last few triennials. And, although a few of the artists have names that suggest something other than a mainstream cultural background, with minimal exception the work itself didn’t give much voice to cultural diversity.

This is even true, for example, when Tom Jones makes his Indian heritage an explicit conceptual conceit. His highly abstract, 40 x 40 inch photographs have titles like “Blue, White, and Red.” At first glance they call to mind the Dadaist paintings of Jean Arp. Closer inspection reveals that we are seeing small plastic toy figurines from underneath a glass table. This feels like a satisfyingly surprising plot twist in a narrative; a reward for paying attention—and reading the artist’s statement. For it is only there that we find out that the figurines are toy Indians instead of more common toy soldiers. Jones calls the series “I am an Indian First and an Artist Second” but to me the work itself—which I like—reverses that order.

In an overall enjoyable show, there are a few exceptional pieces, in my opinion.

Bruce Charlesworth rates—and deserves—a room to himself with an interactive video installation entitled “Love Disorder.” The room itself is large but feels enclosed because it is painted an intense red and black. It is dominated by an enormous screen depicting a tightly cropped man’s face. According to the catalogue copy, when one first enters the empty room the man will say soothing and welcoming things. As you get closer, though, he begins to react; his features and words become agitated, then menacing. During the opening, the full effect was unfortunately diminished because the room was never empty. The gargantuan visage repeatedly urged the milling throng to leave.

Melissa Cooke also uses monumental scale to advantage. From a distance her 50 x 38 inch graphite drawings of women’s faces look like black and white photos. Posture, expression, and marks of abuse on those faces take them beyond the realm of portraiture and into sober social commentary.

The most overt reference to contemporary global concerns comes from a series of dark, monochromatic screen prints by Santiago Cucullu. Combining a familiar vocabulary of layered shapes and lines ranging from rectilinear to paint-spattered with fragments of recognizable cultural iconography, he effectively expresses the turmoil and conflict of post-reunification Germany.

The exhibit continues through August 15.

I’d love to hear what others thought of the exhibit, or what your favorites are.