Milwaukee Arts Board honors Antler and Staab

Arts Without Borders salutes Antler and Roy Staab, who were awarded Milwaukee's Outstanding Artists of 2012 yesterday.

Antler is Milwaukee's award-winning former poet laureate and a lover of nature. He is well paired with Staab, an internationally reknowned artist who uses nature as his canvas and found natural objects as his artistic materials.

The ceremony was held in the cavernous new lobby of Next Act Theater. Mayor Tom Barrett joined with Arts Board Chair alderman Michael Murphy and other Arts Board members in honoring the two awardees.

Arts Board members Anne Kingsbury, of Woodland Pattern, and Polly Morris, of the Lynden Sculpture Garden, introduced Antler and Staab respectively.

Upon receiving the award Antler treated the crowd to three selected poems while images of Staab's many local installations played across a rear projection screen. Staab commented that by selecting only local pieces some of his most significant accomplishments went unheralded. In her remarks, Morris added that Staab probably is more well known abroad than here in his hometown.

It is to be hoped that this award will help to remedy that!

Nature Belle, Menomonee Valley, Roy Staab

To read selected poems by Antler, go to his website.

Rock art in Los Angeles

The latest sculpture by Michael Heizer, variously known as an "environmental" or "earth" artist, is being installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It is a rock. To be more specific, it is a 340-ton, 21-ft high boulder. It will be installed over a trench and given the title "Levitated Mass."

Read all about it at "Lights! Cameras! (And Cheers) For a Rock Weighing 340 Tons" on the NY Times website.

What I find most interesting about the article, which mostly describes the circus-like atmosphere surrounding the transportation of the boulder, is what is missing. There is a passing comment about the cost, which is quickly justified by the attention being paid to it. "A Los Angeles City Council member ... said the installation was worth the considerable effort and expense that have raised some eyebrows at a time of such austerity. 'Look around you, look how this brings out people,' he said. 'This will be a big magnet here at L.A.C.M.A.'" 

What is missing is any question about this rock's status as art. That seems to be accepted without question. Can you imagine that happening in Milwaukee?

How to have a "genuine experience with art"

"Make your own rules," seems to be the answer. In a recent book review by Jennifer B. McDonald of "The Lifespan of a Fact" by John D'Agata, which appeared in the New York Times, McDonald begins with the following:

"This book review would be so much easier to write were we to play by John D’Agata’s rules. So let’s try it. (1) This is not a book review; it’s an essay. (2) I’m not a critic; I’m an artist. (3) Nothing I say can be used against me by the subjects of this essay, nor may anyone hold me to account re facts, truth or any contract I have supposedly entered into with you, the reader. There are to be no objections. There are to be no letters of complaint. For you are about to have — are you ready? — a 'genuine experience with art.' "

And continues: "This is so liberating!"

Ah, the old "anything goes" theory of artistic creation. Never mind the facts. Never mind the world outside the artist's own head.

It's a great review - and reflection about the nature of "art" - the art form in this case being literary.

Check it out: "In the Details."