Maximinimalist Inova/Kenilworth 2155 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 12-5 p.m. www3.uwm.edu/arts/inova/minimalism/ Through April 29 Curating an exhibition is trickier than one might think. Not only does a show need to hold together thematically, but the individual artists’ works, ideally, should spark a conversation between each other. This kind of harmony doesn’t happen often. It’s actually very rare that a group show hits the right pitch where as a force combined it elucidates an idea in multiple ways. The current Maximinimalist exhibition at Inova/Kenilworth provides a perfect example of what a group show can do when the chemistry is tweaked just right. Although this exhibition presents four artists who are working descendents of the 1960s first generation of Minimalists such as Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella or Anges Martin, which is usually a signal for boring, cool, detached work, this is not the case here. The new Inova/Kenilworth space on Prospect Avenue is industrial and large and would seem to pose a curatorial challenge. But the organizer of this show, Nicholas Frank, uses the space with expertise, as if he’s already very comfortable with it. Actually, this is his curatorial debut there. Either he got lucky or he has a poet’s instincts for the phrasing of form and space. There are only four artists represented. Each artist shares a working process of obsessive repetition and the expansive use of simple forms or media. The Chilean artist Livia Marin, who now lives in London, stayed in Milwaukee for several weeks and executed one large work using the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee’s art department facilities. Her work occupies the entire length of a 68-foot wall. It features 21 rows of orderly shelves with white plaster casts of plastic cups lined up along them. There are 1,000 cups, which form elegant lines of gently twisting and bending forms. The variations in each cup are not huge but after looking for a while, subtleties emerge and the shapes become increasingly sculptural and evocative. At the opening reception, the artist said that the focused repetition and the required discipline to cast 1,000 plastic cups is important to her. It becomes a model for appreciating the small, common and simple aspects of life. She also likes the idea that she isn’t reconfiguring the essential nature of the cup, she’s simply amplifying what the cup already speaks of. This keeps the viewer grounded in the material fact of the work, rather than its concept or idea. One could say that the success of all the work in the show is due to this shared component: we are held captive in the active process and production of each piece, giving the work a sense of time unfolding and also firmly connecting viewer to art to artist. Michelle Grabner, formerly of Milwaukee, now teaches at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. This exhibition features a wall of her various sized tondos (round paintings) that are each simply different patterns of circular dots, white on black grounds. As a group, the pieces act like op art expressions, radiating uncomfortably active optic fields. While each piece is made exactly the same way with dots of white paint, the patterns vary. On one hand, Grabner’s work encompasses a cosmic feel of eternity or the infinite sky, but just as potently it addresses the specificity and humility of a particular artist sitting at a table hand- crafting the simplest of objects. Her work speaks of the repetition of things like knitting – mundane and shared acts that nevertheless generate a sense of individuality. Almost unnoticeably, Grabner seems to feminize the act of minimalism, strapping Sol LeWitt into a baby carrier, or more precisely, taking some of the elegant simplicity and purity of the earlier Minimalists and bringing it to the kitchen table. Even the form of her round canvases can suggest both the rather macho geometry of LeWitt or Judd as well as the day-to-day world of dinner plates and hot pads. In history, the tondo became popular in the 1400s and was often the form of wedding gifts and domestic paintings. The power of Grabner’s work is that it operates on many symbolic levels but maintains a physical presence that, like the other work in the show, offers the viewer enough, in and of itself. We are drawn close to these circles of light. Then when you look, the machine-precision that they radiate from a distance, reveals itself as endless rickety little handmade dots of paint on black backgrounds. Nothing could be simpler, yet embedded in each dab is a distillation of discipline, focus, stamina and the belief in the value of “process” or non-goal oriented methods. Jill Sylvia’s work takes the obsessive sense of production to its furthest extreme in this show. She takes old ledger books and, I assume, with an x-acto blade, cuts out each tiny square and space. Her work is delicate, like butterfly wings, yet tinged with pain. The process of creating these crazy ledger cut-outs feels like it borders on insanity. We want to release this poor artist from her undertaking: Tell her it’s OK, she can stop now. But her process yields these marvelous forms. Actually, one has to wonder if Sylvia’s minutely accurate process might equal the repetitive tedium of the pre-computer accountant’s day to day recording of data in little boxes and spaces. Sylvia’s method is extractive while the accountant’s is additive, but perhaps they aren’t so different after all. In the end, however, it’s Sylvia’s seemingly meaningless endeavor that takes us to a plane beyond the mundane. The final artist is Martin Creed. He is the necessary goofy punctuation for this exhibition. His work is the simplest: magic marker lines on little pages. Nothing much. But like the other artists, he takes the most basic, quotidian items –the marker and paper – and tells us something about its potential. He too transcends the ordinariness and predictability of his media by making us notice his scribbles at all. Perhaps Creed’s work is the most irreverently Minimal. Like his forefathers, he reduces the act of art making to its essential elements of color and line, but he eradicates all the highbrow importance of this business and phrases it as child’s play. His color fields glow with subtleties and his various simple patterns have an affable charm. As a whole, this show works well because of the expansiveness of the space and the tight selection of artists. We are off to a good start at Inova/Kenilworth. On Thursday, April 14, in conjunction with this exhibition and one called Paper Thin at Inova/Vogel, UWM will offer a day-long interdisciplinary investigation called Minimalism and Its Legacy. All of the events are free and open to the public (see the write-up in our current EyeSpy column). Organized by Nicholas Frank, Polly Morris and Carl Bogner, events will include performances, screenings and a symposium. For the complete listing of events, go to www3.uwm.edu/arts/inova/minimalism/. Debra Brehmer Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images. Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com <<<<<Back to contents page Copyright 2007. Material may not be used or reproduced without the permission of the author. |
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| Livia Marin and her installation in Maximinimalist. |
| Work by Jill Sylvia. |
| Work by Martin Creed. |
| Work by Michelle Grabner. |