Feb 06
Pegi ChristiansenTemporary Pubic Art
I have nothing against Les Paul or his Gibson guitars, and it is wonderful that the Gibson Foundation has selected Waukesha as a GuitarTown. After all, Les Paul was born in Waukesha and is buried at Prairie Home Cemetery in Waukesha. A gravesite granite memorial was dedicated last September. I want to go see it.
And it doesn’t even bug me that there are going to be ten, ten-foot tall guitars painted by local and regional artists that will be installed, perhaps permanently, in downtown Waukesha. They will be unveiled on June first, a week before Les Paul’s birthday, with Gibson Guitar officials and other notables on hand. Maybe I’ll check it out.
JUST DON’T CALL THIS A PUBLIC ART PROJECT! This is a branding project.
In a January 24th “Waukesha NOW” story, under the subheading “Building a brand,” Norm Bruce, spokesperson for the Waukesha Gibson GuitarTown Committee, says people will think, “Hey we’re the birth- and resting-place of Les Paul and we need to have that as our brand and we have to help push the Les Paul Museum.” Fine.
Having multiple artists enhance some common object and placing the enhanced objects at multiple locations for a limited period of time is not temporary public art. Not Cows on Parade in Chicago (1999) and not the Dennis Pearson Beasties in Milwaukee (2002 and 2004). Temporary public art is mounted to reveal the particular qualities of a distinct place. Those guitars have nothing to do with the suggested sites, like Lare’s Fashions or the Waukesha State Bank.
Jan 20
Pegi ChristiansenImportant Spaces, Temporary Pubic Art
In 2008, the Milwaukee Common Council approved digital billboards. What did you think when you first saw them? I was shocked. Despite the police being able to use them for Amber Alerts, I was upset by the increase in advertising I would be exposed to every month and found the eight-second ad rotation distracting. I was sure there would be a hue and cry. Uh-uh. Not even a whimper. After a month of griping, I let it go.
In 2010, I was having a discussion with Alderman Willie Wade about trying to access using vinyl Clear Channel billboards in the Century City area for art. Alderman Wade got on the phone right away and called Clear Channel. He said, “You know, there is a sunset clause for those digital billboards, and you are supposed to be providing public service as part of this deal.” Clear Channel called me the next day. Clear Channel gave IN:SITE a discount for two billboards, plus made yards and yards of recycled vinyl available that kept materials costs down. I don’t know what some of the artists would have done without that free vinyl in 2010 and 2011.
But I remembered what Alderman Wade said about a sunset clause and recently started to ask around about the date. It’s March 31st. Mark Rausch, Clear Channel Outdoor Wisconsin and Northern Illinois Vice President for Real Estate and Public Affairs, just informed me the sunset clause has been extended on an annual basis since March of 2010. Plus there is no public service requirement for digital billboards, only for bus shelters.
Along with those Amber Alerts, there are a number of things Alderman Wade likes about LED billboards:
–They are greener. There isn’t as much vinyl to recycle.
–They tend to be more attractive. There aren’t any worn, washed-out images.
–There can be lots of public service announcements. Rausch calculated that Clear Channel donates more that a million dollars of donated or discounted space to non-profits in Southeastern Wisconsin every year.
Alderman Wade, along with a number of other alderpersons, especially Alderman Michael Murphy and Robert Bauman, were careful to establish where digital billboards can be installed. They didn’t want them flashing in people’s windows in residential neighborhoods.
Robert Bryson, Chief Traffic and Lighting Engineer, is the City of Milwaukee’s LED billboards expert. He is currently at an annual meeting where he hopes to get an update about whether they lead to increased traffic accidents. Unless they do, digital billboards are probably here to stay. Since they are so profitable, there will likely be more of them in the future.
With this is mind I have three propositions:
1. I believe there should be a countywide discussion about digital billboards. Although Milwaukee County does not have any power over zoning (cities and villages do), it does not seem municipalities within the county have communicated broadly about digital billboards.
2. They may not cause accidents, but the eight-second rotation is too fast. The cycle should be slower.
3. What about having art images, with no advertising or message content, as part of the mix? It would be a visual palette-cleanser and provide an opportunity for more exposure to visual art. Rausch, in a phone conversation today, said he was open to this idea if non-profit art organizations wanted to pursue it.
If some momentum emerges to advance this idea, I will post specifics about digital art billboards.
Jan 17
Pegi ChristiansenPublic Art
Following the money backing a public art project for Bay View explains a lot about current city and county government funding for public art. In October the Bay View Art Stop Design Competition Committee sent out a Request for Proposals for the highly visible triangle at the intersection of Howell, Kinnickinnic, and Lincoln, right across from what will be by fall the Alterra Bay View Café and Bakery. The RFP stipulates the public art piece “must integrate a sheltered area for Milwaukee County Transit users.” The submissions were due January 6th.
The funding for the project in the RFP is listed as “up to” $150,000. So where is this money coming from?
$15,000 is coming from the Milwaukee Arts Board. $25,000 is currently designated in the City of Milwaukee budget annually for public art. It is all that remains of a flimsy, unmandated up to 1% for Art program established during the tenure of Mayor John Norquist. The MAB has a subcommittee, chaired by Polly Morris, that brings forward funding requests to the full board.
The subcommittee has focused on three initiatives. The first is a conservation fund to preserve public art. The second documents Milwaukee public art for the online Wikipedia Saves Public Art Milwaukee. The third provides matching funds for public art projects. In 2011, it helped support a public art project inside the new Villard Avenue Library. The subcommittee’s initiatives stretch the budget to accomplish valuable goals.
$50,000 is coming from Milwaukee County. How is this possible? County Executive Chris Abele in June stripped over $700,000 from the Milwaukee County Public Art Committee’s 1% for Art program. (I resigned from the MCPAC in August, though I was not opposed to Abele’s action.) The money was supposed to be redirected entirely to deferred maintenance projects. However, County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic proposed having $50,000 diverted to the Bay View “artistic bus shelter.” Abele vetoed the expenditure, but the board voted to override.
At a MCPAC meeting on Friday, the committee was chagrinned. County Director of Legislative Affairs Tia Torhorst urged the committee to take a sabbatical until fall, when Abele could consider reinstating funding for the mandated 1% for Art program, perhaps in 2014. County Supervisor Gerry Broderick pushed to fold the committee. “Otherwise, we are beating a dead horse,” he said. Broderick, who considers further work on the committee a “fruitless effort,” will tender his resignation. Chair Lisa Berman complained about the county public art program reduced to, “Random public art, not coordinated, with money flowing in dribs and drabs to little pieces here and there.”
Under its current guidelines, the MCPAC had no ability to develop flexible programming. The committee decided not to push for new guidelines while Scott Walker was Milwaukee County Executive, because the MCPAC feared Walker would disband the committee altogether. The MCPAC will meet in May to consider its future.
On Friday, the Bay View Art Stop Design Competition Committee, chaired by BYO Studio Lounge co-owner Kerry Yandell with Alderman Tony Zielinski as the other contact member of the committee, reviewed the fifteen submissions. The other members of the selection committee are Supervisor Dimitrijevic, Eric Ponto (Bay View resident), Jason Wedesky (President of the Kinnickinnic Avenue Business Improvement District), Brian Dranzik (Milwaukee County Transit System), Mike Loughran (Department of Public Works), Tom Mallmann, Amy Heart (Milwaukee Shines solar program manager), and Laura Ashleigh King (Milwaukee Arts Board).
Chair Yandell emailed, “The committee has identified up to $80,000 in funding for the project (public and private), and we are in the process of identifying and applying for additional funding to reach $150,000.” Yandell suggests the committee might be able to amass more than $150,000. This is somewhat unusual. Typically an RFP is not distributed until full funding is in place, though sometimes the selected project, where donors can see what their contribution will buy, is used to help raise money. So far taxpayers are paying at least $65,000 of the budget.
In February, there will be presentations to the public by the three finalists. As soon as I know the date, time, and place, I will post this information. Public art is public, and I urge you to attend.
Jan 11
Pegi ChristiansenPerformance Art
Friday night Theresa Columbus performed to a packed crowd of at least 75 people in the 631 E. Center 2A space. It was a first in three ways. This was the first in what is hoped to be many performance art events in the studio shared by Sarah Luther, Sara Caron, Allison Heape, Marisa Wall, and me. Theresa, in all her years at Darling Hall, never performed a night of only her work. She presented her video, “Nostalgia for Everything,” about visiting family in Crete for the first time.
The performance was Theresa in all her exuberant, vibrant, smart glory! The night before, Theresa told me the purpose of the show “is to show the potency and potential of having and enjoying your own voice.” And she did.
In the “Nostalgia” video, Theresa creates an artist statement that is a piece of art, contrasting the natural setting and intuitive movement of the camera with the frustrating task of explaining one’s art. In it she says, “Making art is really difficult because you never know when you have organized your brain enough to sense what is important for you to say. You can always decide that you haven’t worked hard enough.”
“Don’t Be Mad at Me and Other Fears” is a monolog about when Theresa was raped. It was both intensely discomforting and funny. Part of the discomfort is the humor. Is it okay to laugh? She keeps circling around to her uneasiness to talk about the rape. She is worried what she says will be used against her.
Theresa repeats “touché,” “come on,” and “I’ll be here all week” over and over in different contexts. The three all have multiple connotations that build tension. Touché means making a witty point and also refers to being “touched” when you are hit in fencing. “Come on” is any sort of allure or inducement, but also a sexual advance. Theresa has on layers of clothes and takes off one and starts to unbutton another. After the performance, Theresa emailed me, “Instead of becoming more powerful and sexy by removing clothes, I become more awkward.”
“I’ll be here all week,” Theresa explains to the audience, is what comedians say after a joke. Theresa uses this phrase to maintain, “I’m an artist and I’m continuing to make art even though messed up things do happen.” Theresa does not disclose much about the rape in the piece because it didn’t become a major factor in her life.
Theresa also repeatedly informs the audience she will sing a song about rape, but fills the piece with commentary about rape and anecdotes about other pieces she has done. The audience joins her singing the refrain, “Don’t be Mad at Me,” and Theresa late in the piece sings a song describing the day she was raped.
It happened when she was enthralled with the beauty of the world. She met a man who seemed to understand and share her rapture, and she ended up going to his apartment.
During the rape, she thought about losing her writing in her macramé bag on the floor. Afterwards, she grabbed it and ran out. She saved her voice. She didn’t let the rape define her. She defines and defies it.
The third piece, “Mega Joy,” is a video about different types of performances interacting with video. She edited together bits and pieces from past performances in Milwaukee and Baltimore (where Theresa currently lives) to illustrate how you can record performing for friends, perform alone for a camera, use the video camera as a prop, document theater pieces, or film a play.
Since many people in the audience were also in “Mega Joy,” the evening was nostalgic in a way that left me, and others I spoke with, itching to make art. First, though, many people stayed to dance for a couple of hours. I woke up the next morning knowing exactly how I will develop my next performance art piece, something that had stumped me for weeks.
Jan 08
Pegi ChristiansenPublic Art, Temporary Pubic Art
August 18th last year, I posted about Janet Zweig’s public art project, “Pedestrian Drama,” on the first block of East Wisconsin Avenue. At the time I went to see it, one of the five kiosks with three flap sign stories wasn’t in place. The kiosk needed repairs. It was returned from Italy and installed this past week.
It is a testament to the care of the entire “Pedestrian Drama” process that this additional kiosk adds so much to the entire balance of the piece. The whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.
In this returned kiosk, the one farthest east, the first story starts with two girls turning jump ropes double Dutch. It ends with a boy coming in, missing, and then running into the middle story. He jumps onto a couch a woman is trying to lift. The boy departs, in walks a man to help her, but he gets distracted and leaves to enter the third story. A woman, holding a map, needs directions. The man points her one way. She meets up with another man who points her right back to where she was.
The kiosk is a study in frustrations: lacking a skill, seeking rest, looking for help, trying to keep focus, losing one’s way, and receiving incorrect information. No huge frustrations, but they are the type of irritations that can sap our good will or waylay our attempts to complete a task. This may be my favorite kiosk now, and it speaks to the entire process of “Pedestrian Dramas.”
Zweig did so much research for these dramas and spent so much time working with a team to create them. A new five-times-three series will be filmed, edited, and mounted inside the kiosks this year. I can well imagine the many frustrations Zweig has already encountered, including fine-tuning the mechanics of the kiosks. I wish her all the best surmounting frustrations for the next set of “Pedestrian Dramas.”
Dec 22
Pegi ChristiansenPerformance Art
First, I want to make you aware of a performance art event coming up:
Nostalgia for Everything
Performance art and video by Theresa Columbus
Friday, January 6th
631 E. Center Street, 2A
Doors open 8:30. Show 9:00.
–“Nostalgia for Everything”
A video, set on the island of Crete, is about art, places of nostalgia, family, and the pleasures and sensibility of disorientation.
--“Don’t Be Mad at Me and Other Fears”
A performance art piece that contains sensitive material about rape and the culture surrounding it.
–“Mega Joy”
A performance poking fun at writing artist statements and includes a video collage full of documentation from theatrical performance, film, and improvising for the camera.
Following the performance, there will be a reception and dancing.
Theresa Columbus is a performance artist, playwright, filmmaker, and founder of Darling Hall.
Second, I went to see “Anticipation,” an endurance performance art piece by William Skaleski on December 17th. It was part of the opening for the INOVA/Arts Center BFA Fall Exhibition. In a side gallery, about 13’ by 25’, a thick rope was bolted into one of the shorter walls through the baseboard. In the middle of the floor there was piece of thick white paper, about 4’ by 6’, taped to the floor.
Right at 5:00, Skaleski walked out in black shorts and a brown t-shirt with rips in it. He lay down on the paper and for fifty minutes kept clutching the rope and used his legs and arms as though he intended to pull himself along the floor to the side of the room. Except he didn’t. At least if you were watching Skaleski, he didn’t. He stayed the entire time on the white paper, inching up and down and rolling right and left.
There was a video camera hung on the ceiling in the middle of the room, only showing Skaleski within the white space, and it was projected as a live feed in the middle of the long wall opposite the doorway. If you watched the video on the wall, since all you could see was Skaleski within the white rectangle, it looked as though he was moving.
There was a quiet rumbling sound in the background. In an email after the event, Skaleski explained it was a slowed, extended version of the guitar solo in the Pearl Jam song “Porch.”
At the end of the fifty minutes a timer went off, Skaleski moved his hands away from the rope, stood up, and left the “stage.”
In his artist statement Skaleski asks, “Is the subject succeeding in one view and failing in the other, or are both views equal?” It was mesmerizing and cathartic to watch Skaleski. It is what our lives are made of: to struggle and struggle again. Inside, we often feel as though we have made no progress at all, yet others tell us we are succeeding.
An installation of the piece and a video documentation of it will be in the exhibit when the gallery reopens on January 24th (and closes February 4th).
I congratulate Skaleski and look forward to seeing Theresa’s solo performance!
Dec 16
Pegi ChristiansenPublic Art
On October 31st, I posted trying to locate Paul Yank’s “Tulip Fountain.” It was removed from Cathedral Square in 1991. Mary Louise Schumacher also posted about it on Facebook and on Art City. Three people thought it might be under the Lincoln Memorial Bridge by the Milwaukee Art Museum.
I called around and everyone was very helpful. East Town Association led me to the War Memorial Center and then to a former Milwaukee County Parks employee and finally to Susie Devcich, the Assistant Chief of Recreation and Business Operations for the Milwaukee County Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture. She did research for me and emailed, “Milwaukee County is no longer in possession of the statue. It was sold at the county auction about eight years ago.” According to Devcich, records don’t exist that go back that far, so I can’t find more information.
Does anyone know who bought it?
Dec 02
Pegi ChristiansenInstallations
Here are notes about three art events I attended recently:
You only have a few more days to catch the “Generation Next” show at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Sarah Luther’s installation warrants attention. For the show opening, Sarah sang a song, and you can see it at MIAD or here–
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X74E83wLcJk
Sarah got me the lyrics–
Why would I
Ever even try to ask for more?
When I’ve got every thing I need to keep me company…
I see you there so dependable
Together we can do anything because you are my drill!
With one squeeze of my finger we can make or break our world
Our synergies uncanny and the projects just unfurl
Yes I can count on you
You never let me down like others do
You, an image of true perfection
And me, looking on with affection
Your brilliance is the basis of all technology
Nature you’re my idol and my mythology
We’ll stay up and talk about the world
I’ll trust you more than any other girl
On a Friday night, or in a public artist roll
So unpredictable and I have no control
I can’t take the conversation lets me down or makes me bored
But maybe it’s myself that I am scared of even more?
Afraid to be let down again
Or trying to avoid not fitting in
I personify your utility
And I can revel in your monotony
But this relationship is based on one-sided excitement
And growing changing dialogs come from others’ intelligence
Risky yes but I’m convinced
Value lies in friends and confidence
Why would I
Ever even try to ask for more
When I’ve got everything I need to keep me guessing…
At the opening, I asked Sarah to sing the song again. Once was not enough. She sings about what she can depend on. First, her tools. Once in hand, the art happens. It doesn’t happen by thinking about it. The art happens in the doing of it. And Sarah can depend on nature. For Sarah, nature is integral to her art literally (see the wild weeds displayed as part of her installation), as well as her inspiration. Finally, she can count on her friends. Being in the “art world” is crucial, but you need people who know you and understand you to propel you.
Sarah received one of the 2011 Greater Milwaukee Foundation Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists in the Emerging Artist category. A show with the work of the 2010 winners is on view at INOVA until December 7th. Waldek Dynerman, one of the Established Artists, pulled out all the stops for his installation. It is wild in the best untamed and raw sense of that word. Waldek uses insulation foam board, found objects, house paint, wood, plaster, metal, electric motors, security camera projection, light, and sound to create “art as an agent of progress.” Everything is available; nothing is off limits.
Maybe my favorite element is the sign he hand-lettered outside the opening–
Inventory Manual:
1 You can turn the switches on and off, except inside of the frames.
2 Do not move sculptures even though they have wheels.
3 You can sit in the armchair. (It is very comfy.)
4 Fragile. Explore with care.
Thank you.
The sign is a perfect expression of his ambivalence with “authority, decorum, and consumerism.”
I want to get over to the Milwaukee Art Museum lower level for the Chipstone Foundation “The Tool at Hand” show, opening December 8th.
http://mam.org/exhibitions/details/the-tool-at-hand.php
I got to have a hands-on experience with one of the pieces on November 22nd. Madison artist Hongtao Zhou arranged a line of tables end-to-end inside Sweetwater Organics in Bay View. On the middle table were a few not-very-sturdy-looking branches tied together with not-very-sturdy-looking string to form a not-very-sturdy-looking chair. On either side of the chair were various warming devices with white, recycled wax. Beside the warmers were gloves. You could put on a pair of gloves and work with the wax until it was the right consistency to mold, not liquid or solid, and shape it around the chair. I arrived in time to be one of the first volunteers, along with Joe Riepenhoff and Marisa Wall. I will be eager to see the chair in its finished form soon.
Nov 27
Pegi ChristiansenInstallations
For most of my life, I have lived within fifteen minutes of most of the galleries and art museums in town, and they were along my route to other places. Now I live thirty minutes away from seeing art. This has made it more difficult to get to shows, so I care when they end.
I had information that “The Charles Allis: 100 Years” was ending November 13th. Yes, I wanted to get to the opening in February. Yes, I had hoped to attend one of the artist talks. I just couldn’t make it over. Six Wisconsin artists created installations in five of the rooms at the Allis. I had to find time, but I didn’t sweat it. Sure enough, I could squeak over on November 9th, four full days before the close.
I went to the website to check on the hours. HORRORS! There was a note on the website that most of the installations were already down. I called over and Norman Stephens, a museum assistant, answered. Norman explained that due to the upcoming holiday show the artists had been asked to de-install early. Only two of the five rooms were left. I drove over anyway.
I’m so glad I did.
Norman was at the entrance desk and pointed out where to go. I got to see Ashley Morgan’s “A Wake for the Living” in the dining room. Morgan shrouded the table and chairs and even the chandelier with muslin. It was like the memory game where you are shown objects on a tray and then it is pulled away and you write down as many of the items as you can remember. I’ve been in the Charles Allis enough that I should be able to recall what had been “removed.” I couldn’t. Yet I could hear those furnishings and how they breathe and speak by having them silenced.
In the sitting room, I checked out the 10-inch digital monitors with Reginald Baylor’s four “formulas” of images within math equations. It was intriguing how these seemingly non-intrusive rectangles of modern technology took over the room. I was puzzling over what I was supposed to understand from the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of visual symbols when Norman walked into the room.
I asked Norman what had been in the other rooms. He described the three other installations by Carol Emmons, Gary Gresl, and the team of Martha Glowacki and Alexander Boyes, so well I felt I really did see them. When Theresa Columbus lived here, we would go to Gallery Night together and pick a piece of art that we had to try and describe to a friend who wasn’t there. I was brought back to those Fridays we shared. Norman also gave me the postcard to the show, encouraged me to look at the descriptions on the website,
http://www.charlesallis.org/documents/CA_100YearsGalleryGuide_000.pdf
and to read the “Art City” review by Graeme Reid.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/116352459.html
Thanks to Norman, I believe I had a richer experience of the show than if I’d managed to get over earlier. And congratulations to curator Martha Norman for pressing the “refresh” button for us. I won’t experience the Charles Allis the same way ever again. My future visits will be heightened by imagining what I would do if let loose to do an alteration.
Nov 13
Pegi ChristiansenInstallations
I try to follow attempts to broaden the Milwaukee art audience. Year-old ART Milwaukee intrigues me (http://www.artmilwaukee.com/index.html). Its mission is to “enrich, empower and inspire our community through art.”
ART Milwaukee is currently accepting submissions for the upcoming “Milwaukee Awards Show.” The dozen categories range from “Best of Drawing” to “Best Cocktail.” When I spoke with ART Milwaukee President Jeremy Fojut, I asked him if he considered making a cocktail and a painting the same thing. He said they were both creative endeavors and he did not see any difference between them.
This same sort of leveling happened at the Grand Avenue Plankinton Building (where ART Milwaukee rents space) for its “1-Year Birthday Party” on October 6th. According to ART Milwaukee, 2100 people attended. I couldn’t figure out that event, with various art stuff going on and people wandering around.
On November 3rd, I went to the ART Milwaukee ART Jamboree, “Rooms,” at the Aloft Hotel Downtown. The first floor had art displayed by eight artists. None of the art stood out. The exhibit had none of the sophistication of the shows in the gallery space at the Intercontinental Hotel. On the second floor, there were “six different art experiences” in six different rooms.
Room 1 had a music video. Okay.
Room 2 delighted me. Two actors from Pink Banana Theater performed a scene from a play that takes place in a hotel room. I was instantly drawn into the drama.
Room 3 disturbed me. Photographer Jonathan Canny did a shoot of a scantily clad young woman on the bed. A friend told me he took pictures of the woman in the shower too.
Room 4 puzzled me. Two massage therapists offered their services for free. Huh?
Room 5 had a DJ and two dancers. Well, okay.
In Room 6, an agent representing painter Scott Menzel greeted people. There was a live feed on a monitor so you could see Menzel and ask him questions. It was more selling than art, but okay.
I called Matt Kemple, Pink Banana’s Artist Producer, a few days ago. He was also one of the two actors performing. I asked him what he thought of the Aloft experience. “The exposure was exciting and people really got engaged,” he said. He thought it was “odd” to have massage therapists there, but he was pleased with the attention for the theater company.
I also called Reginald Baylor. He is one of the most accomplished artists in the city. I hadn’t seen his art anywhere, but he was listed in the program. He said his art was displayed on a TV monitor, but he didn’t go to Aloft to see where it was. Why did Reggie participate? Reggie explained that in 2004 and 2005 he couldn’t get any gallery in the city to represent him. He participated because he believes ART Milwaukee is helping to sustain artists as they sort out where they belong. Reggie was the first “Artist in Residence” at the Pfister Hotel in 2009. (Shelby Keefe is the 2011 Artist in Residence.) Reggie also participated because he wanted to support Aloft hosting the event.
I agree. Bravo Aloft!
Maybe I am being too picky. Maybe the mishmash is working. After all, ART Milwaukee is only a year old.
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