Seeing Peru: New book available

It took me over a year to get around to it, but I've just completed a book based on my solo exhibit at Mount Mary College in 2011. It is entitled Seeing Peru: Layered Realities. At 11" x 13" it is my first large scale book project to date. The entire book can be previewed (and purchased) at Blurb.com.

The following is adapted from the introduction:

"In popular imagination Peru conjures up images of an ancient Incan civilization that lingers in jungles and atop mountains in noble defiance of the colonial conquest that led to its ruin. Despite a period of relative peace, contemporary Peru, like many of its South American neighbors, also suggests political unrest born of extreme social and economic stratifications. Most Peruvians, however, live simple lives from day to day, eking out a subsistence in one of the harshest landscapes on earth.

Seeing Peru: Layered Realities emphasizes the contrasts I’ve witnessed in a land both mythical and humble. The terrain rises almost vertically from the vast Pacific, reaching heights over 20,000 feet before falling just as precipitously into one of the most remote jungles in the world. Where it isn’t jungle, it is mostly desert. Amidst a largely barren landscape, irrigation in fertile volcanic soil makes possible the cultivation of a rich diversity of crops. Most tourists visit Cusco and the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba River, where the individual human is dwarfed by the colossal stonework of the Inca. But as impressive as these fabulous structures can be, they are themselves dwarfed by the sheer scale of the mountainous landscape."

"I was in Peru in conjunction with a Mount Mary College cross-cultural art therapy program. The program included a pilgrimage to Cusco, Machu Picchu, and other sites in the Sacred Valley, as well as an excursion to the Colca Canyon. But the primary focus was on service learning, working with the poor, and cultural understanding.

The goal of this book is to convey a sense of the “layered realities” I experienced. Along with the realities of geography, climate, and culture, I was particularly struck by the contrast between the typical views a traveler might bring back from Peru and the lives of ordinary Peruvians. The book is divided into two sections. The first provides a glimpse of the expected: the monuments and the colorful characters who appeal to tourists. The larger second section focuses on the conditions in a community that is hidden from the view of a typical tourist (as well as many urban Peruvians): the lives of the people who live in Alto Cayma."

Gary John Gresl: An Assembler

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Mnemonic Device..., detail

A small cabinet contains some unlabeled and unidentifiable pickled vegetables and jellied fruits—and dime store Indianhead salt and pepper shakers. But the contents are obscured by the cabinet itself, which is thoroughly encrusted with multi-hued buttons, old Christmas light bulbs, miniature statuary, vintage cameos. It is festooned with hemp, rawhide, feathers, and strings of beadwork. A familiar looking sock puppet monkey hangs ignominiously off to the side. An old enameled tin spoon stands at attention atop it all. It is a commanding gesture, but one left open to interpretation.

Titled "Mnemonic Device, I Remember Grandma," this is one of the more restrained and contained assemblages by Gary John Gresl in his current show at Mount Mary College’s Marian Gallery. Some of the more flamboyant installations feature human and animal skulls, stuffed deer with racks of antlers, rifles, feathered arrows, fishing paraphernalia, full-scale farm implements and other machinery. Gresl calls himself “an assembler,” which is an understatement.

Gresl told me that his work is inspired by the environments and people of his youth: “cabins, fishing holes, farms with their dried corn stalks and haylofts, attics and country auctions, and the good unpolished people that were my aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, all Wisconsinites.” But, although the work at a superficial glance appears to be rough and haphazard, his ideas are anything but unpolished. Art that suggests hunting lodge décor or a fisherman’s wharf are often pigeonholed or, worse, dismissed by the art establishment. (I was happy to see some of this work at UWM’s INOVA gallery recently, an indication perhaps that Milwaukee’s art establishment has a healthy willingness to transcend traditional dichotomies.) This work deserves serious consideration and careful scrutiny is rewarded with layered meanings and potent symbolism. 

Storage

Gresl counts Robert Rauschenberg and the abstract expressionists among his many influences and considers Franz Kline, “with his huge bold black and white strokes” a favorite. The connection could easily be overlooked, but the relationship is there in the extravagant gestures of thick rope, steel barrel staves, worn wagon wheels, and—yes—antlers and bones.

detail

This piece in particular, intriguingly titled “What We Found After I Opened It,” easily recalls Jackson Pollock or even Frank Stella’s more recent high relief sculptures without losing a sense of its own identity.

Art has the power to provoke, to delight, to disturb, and to surprise. It is a rare work of art that can do all of these things. Art can be sensory, intellectual, emotional. The successful combination of all three of these modalities is likewise a rare achievement. This show, subtitled “New and Old Works, Large and Small,” is both a retrospective and a tour de force. It is a truism among serious art patrons that an authentic experience of original work is lost when it is seen in reproduction. That is especially true of sculpture—and, I will confidently assert, most definitely true of this exhibit.

It will come as no surprise that for several decades Gresl made his living as an antique dealer. In fact, I first met him in his shop in Milwaukee’s Third Ward, a typically dusty and cluttered establishment full of potential treasures. “I chose that occupation for the most part because the objects fascinated me. Handling antiques and collectibles have provided me with opportunities for learning: . . . their design . . . their history . . . their sometimes peculiar and enlightening place in cultures. They bring [to my sculptures] that sort of multi-layered history with the associations and possibility to create metaphors.”

Gresl’s love of materiality is self-evident in his artwork. The conceptual rigor that lies beneath the encrusted cabinetry takes more effort to appreciate. But it is well worth it. As indicated parenthetically in the exhibition title—“possible solo finale” —this may be the last opportunity to see his work in this breadth and depth. While reassuring me that he is in good health Gresl conceded that the physical effort and financial investment that are required to produce, transport, and install such elaborate pieces are taking their toll.

Perhaps this is one reason why the labor-intensive installations are supplemented with images of what Gresl calls “Outstallations.” These are interventions in the landscape that become available in the gallery setting through meticulously composed photographs. While I personally find the installations richer in texture, denser with metaphoric possibility, and packing a more powerful emotional punch, I look forward to seeing how this new phase of Gresl’s long career develops.

The exhibit opened last weekend but the “opening reception” is Sunday, September 16, 2–4 pm. The show runs through October 27.

The Marian Gallery is in Caroline Hall on the Mount MaryCollege campus at 2900 N. Menomonee River Parkway, Milwaukee.

Seeing the real Peru: beyond Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley

The Doors of Alto Cayma 1

In popular imagination Peru conjures up images of an ancient Incan civilization that lingers in jungles and atop mountains in noble defiance of the colonial conquest that led to its ruin. Despite a period of relative peace, contemporary Peru, like many of its South American neighbors, also suggests political unrest born of extreme social and economic stratifications. Most Peruvians, however, live simple lives from day to day, eking out a subsistence in one of the harshest landscapes on earth.

The Doors of Alto Cayma 3

The emphasis in my upcoming photo exhibit, Seeing Peru: Layered Realities, is on the contrasts I’ve witnessed in a land both mythical and humble. The terrain there rises almost vertically from the vast Pacific, reaching heights over 20,000 feet before falling just as precipitously into one of the most remote jungles in the world. Where it isn’t jungle, it is mostly desert. Amidst an arid landscape, irrigation in fertile volcanic soil makes possible the cultivation of a rich diversity of crops. Most tourists visit Cusco and the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba River, where the individual human is dwarfed by the colossal stonework of the Inca. But as impressive as these fabulous structures can be, they are themselves dwarfed by the sheer scale of the mountainous landscape.

 

Panoramic view of Inca ruins at Pisac 

 I went to Peru in 2009. It was my second journey there in conjunction with a cross-cultural program sponsored by Mount Mary College. We did the pilgrimage to Cusco, Machu Picchu, and other sites in the Sacred Valley and the exhibit acknowledges this important aspect of the experience. But the primary focus was on service learning, working with the poor, and cultural understanding. There is much we can learn from a place with such “layered realities.”

Paustina, weaver in the Sacred Valley

If you are familiar with my previous work, I invite you to come and be surprised. Paradox, which has long been a major theme for me, continues to excite me. But in Seeing Peru I have tried to do justice to the sheer scale of the subject as well as its layered complexity. My goal is to convey the incredible contrasts I experienced while I was there, contrasts between the barren landscape and the indomitable spirit of ordinary Peruvians, contrasts between the typical views a traveler might bring back from Peru and reality of life in a difficult place called Alto Cayma.

Zayda, community psychologist in Alto Cayma

The government of Peru permits migrants to settle on vacant land. Over the years they have come in successive waves to the outskirts of Arequipa, each moving higher up the arid, rocky mountainsides that surround the city. New arrivals mark a small plot of land by laying out a row of round stones. The row gradually becomes a fence of crudely stacked uncut stones. Little by little, tiny shelters are erected, at first with no roofs, no doors or windows. No other image of Peru – not even magnificent Machu Picchu – is so seared in my mind as my first view of these small stone structures climbing up the barren hillsides, knowing that each one represents a family that has come to live here in the dust, hoping to give their children a better life.

Beneath the Volcano

Peru is a land where reality itself is a harshly lit abstraction. If I have been successful, the photographs teeter on an edge that divides a solid narrative from an abyss of abstraction. I hope you’ll join me there.

Seeing Peru: Layered Realities runs from Jan. 16 – Feb. 12 in the Marion Gallery at Mount Mary College.

I will be present for the opening on Jan. 16, from 1-4 pm, and for a special reception on Jan. 30, from 2-4 pm.

The Marion Gallery is located in Caroline Hall, Mount Mary College,

2900 N. Menomonee River Parkway, Milwaukee

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Gallery hours are M-F: 9 am – 7 pm and S/S: 1 – 4 pm.

Additional images from Peru can be seen in two sets on my flickr page.

Yale to return artifacts to Peru

One of the more contentious and longstanding examples of what's become a common issue in the art world seems to be resolved as Yale University announced on Friday that it would return thousands of Peruvian artifacts that were taken when Machu Picchu was excavated a hundred years ago. Having witnessed sunrise from the Puerta del Sol on the Inca Trail above Machu Picchu, I freely admit to being under its influence.

Click here for the story as attributed to the Associated Press and reported on NPR. (Go NPR! Hey, I'm not biassed.)

Here's a shot from my trip in 2009. Stay tuned for my upcoming exhibit, Seeing Peru: Layered Realities, which opens January 16 at Mt. Mary College. You can see two sets of images from Peru on my flickr page.

Starving Artists smile at Mount Mary College

To misquote one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite old movies, Little Big Man—“It’s a good day to starve.” Today was one of those perfect, crisp, almost-autumn, apple-picking days when the sun melts over everyone like hot caramel. I did go apple-picking at Barthel’s farm in Mequon. Then, on my way home, I stopped at Mount Mary College to check out their Starving Artists Fair.

I’ve always worried over that name—“starving artists.” Doesn’t it sound just the teensiest bit patronizing? But it seems to work as a marketing ploy, not only for the art-buying public, but for the artists, too. I spoke with several who unanimously agreed it had been a great day. I arrived late, after the grass had been completely flattened and some of the booths stripped of their wares. Photographer Fred Fischer said I should have been here at 10 a.m. when they opened the gates. Apparently it was like opening the doors of the mall on Black Friday. Or, to outrageously mix my metaphors, like the start of the running of the bulls in a china shop!

Life imitates art?

With low booth fees and lots of sales, the artists did well. (They come from all over the state year after year; it has to be worth it.) With the maximum value set at $100, the price conscious art-buying public did well. (For the artists that’s a thankfully higher maximum than past fairs.) And with hordes of people paying $5 entry fees and buying refreshments, the college did well. Sounds like a win-win-win to me. Although, by design, this fair caters to lowest economic denominators of art (I overheard one potter confide that he brought only his ‘seconds’ along), it’s nothing to shake a rag at when art sells during a recession.

And, just as the old Indian in Little Big Man didn’t die that day, no one at Mt. Mary seems to have starved either.

Art reflects life?

If you missed this one and have a hankering to go to an art fair, you’re in luck! The Hidden River Art Festival in Brookfield is next weekend.