The Mary L. Nohl Galleries Inova/Zelazo Center Helen Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts Third Floor 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd., Milwaukee. www3.uwm.edu/arts/about/inova_exhibits.html Through May 10. Review by Graeme Reid The old adage says the proof is in the pudding. This implies that the end product is the result of the right ingredients being combined in the right order by someone who knows what they’re doing. If this can be analogously applied to the Metals! 07 show at UWM, the ingredients (student time, effort, imagination and a judicious choice of materials) and the cooks (the faculty and students) have indeed produced a tasty pudding. What is all the more remarkable is that just a few years ago, the metals “kitchen” at UWM was on the verge of closing up. In 2001/02, the Jewelry and Metalsmithing department was on hiatus, a circumstance that might well presage closure. UWM then made a smart move: they hired Yevgenia Kaganovich, a graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and SUNY-New Paltz, one of the most prestigious metals programs in the country. When she started in 2002 there were seven metals majors and an uphill climb to resurrect the department. Today there are 34 majors in the program. Yevgenia, together with Jennifer Pollock and Frankie Flood (Jennifer is full time Associate Lecturer, teaching in Metals and Foundations; Frankie just got a tenure track position in Foundations and will be teaching Metals classes in addition to teaching in Foundations), have turned this program around into one of the most dynamic at the school. These three faculty are all in their very early thirties and, frankly, could be mistaken for graduate students themselves. The old school perception of Jewelry and Metalsmithing is of fine metals and expensive gems. No more. Today, the contemporary artist has a freedom to use a wider choice of materials from plebian plastics to aristocratic metals. This juried show – which was initiated by Yevgenia and has become an annual event, supplemented by the end-of-year sale of student work – bears evidence of this throughout. Juried by nationally acclaimed artist Myra Mimlitch-Gray, the two small Mary L. Nohl Galleries in the Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts on Kenwood are filled with quality work. While a strong attachment to traditional metals is clearly evident with plenty of silver in use (platinum and gold are hard to manage on a student budget) more mundane materials feature regularly and with distinction. The point is clearly being made that it is not the material that counts, but craftsmanship, imagination and application of technique. Form and function count for more than cost of materials. While Mimlitch-Grey’s selections were the cream of the crop, for me the standout works are many and include Brian Carter’s Individual Medals of Freedom. This piece comprises a long row of identical small medals on blue ribbons adorned with the names and pictures of Medal of Freedom recipients. Awarded singly and sporadically, the Medal of Freedom line up chosen by Carter contains many famous people whose award would seem eminently logical, deserved and for apolitical skills: Nelson Mandela, Fred Rogers, Julia Childs, Van Cliburn, Arnold Palmer and Bill Cosby. All highly talented and the best in their fields. The message here? Transcend class, country, race and religion, be very good at what you do and receive recognition. Perhaps more dubious in the rationale for receipt are L. Paul Bremer (de facto viceroy of Iraq after the 2003 invasion and overseer of numerous bad decisions whose consequences are still disastrously in play); George Tenet (the CIA’s voice of justification of invasion of Iraq based on fraudulent documents); and Lord Robertson (the British politician and head of NATO who supported the war against Iraq). The message here? Do the Bush Administration’s bidding and get your gong. A marvelously incisive and timely piece. Staying on the subject of war and death, Phillip Troyer’s Dressed to Kill uses tiny cast semi-automatic weapons in the form of a necklace that apes the drippy costume jewelry of years past.v It draws attention to the fact that in American society, weapons are worshipped and fetishized and, as the Virginia Tech shootings reveal, this adoration can have dire consequences. vA simultaneously elegant and edgy piece. Not everything is so message/issue driven however. vKate Callan’s Tomato and Strawberry Tea set was simple, well crafted and whimsical. The Silver Drops necklace by Erika Jenkins comprised what looked like little silver egg whisks in a charmingly stylish piece. Other necklaces of note are by Linda Hoffman whose Daisy and Wine Tasting works both use very non-traditional materials to create bold, eye- catching, effective and practical items. A rather interesting work is Jada Milner’s En-Deer-Ing necklace. The title is a play on words because the piece is made of copperwire and carefully crafted ovals of deer antler. (ed. note: according to Milner, the piece is brass.) While somewhat ghoulish, in Wisconsin it makes perfect sense – men pose with their trophies and mount the stuffed heads on their walls. Why not craft a bit of jewelry for the missus from those antlers? How proud a wife might be, declaring that her necklace is made from parts of a deer her husband shot? Like Philip Troyer’s gun necklace, this piece raises questions over the form, function and materials used in jewelry, and, to a greater extent, art in general. Should it be all nice and pretty and decorative? Why are fur, leather, pearls and other by-products of animals generally acceptable but a necklace made from antler or featuring mini guns maybe less so? While it is accepted that visual arts such as painting and photography can be confrontational and issue driven, jewelry has traditionally been seen as aloof from such “base” sentiments. These two students have chosen to disregard that distinction and apply issues to a form that accepts it easily in construction, but maybe not so much in public approval. Rings line up alongside necklaces as common form in the show. This originates from the creation of a “superhero ring” being a staple project in Jennifer Pollock’s class. Examples abound with many being entirely impractical and crossing the line into miniature sculptures. (After all, I suppose, no superhero would wear a regular, practical ring). Kristen Keogh’s superhero ring combines silver and feathers to create an elegant abstraction of a face that would be (just) wearable. Feathers are also a salient feature of Kaarin Swan’s Feather Dusters, which feature projections of black feathers with the implied practical purpose of making dusting easy with a wave of a hand. To me they resemble little high heeled evening shoes, conjuring issues of domesticity, gender stereotyping and role playing. One of the most engaging displays is a collective project by students in the Jewelry and Metalsmithing I class. Thirty-four silhouettes of figures are arranged cheek-by-jowl. Initially part of a beginning project in Yevgenia’s class, the assignment has been embraced by Jennifer and Frankie and the results are outstanding. Favorites of mine included Joshua Paynter’s Guitar Player and Amp, Kristen Barnick’s Figure at a Window, Wendy Arendt’s Bicycle Rider, Jessica Olivero’s Surfers, Miranda Leary’s Sitting Figure and Andrew Romanelli’s Couple Dancing. Marvelously inventive, the students show a great grasp of positive and negative space and finely detailed cutting of the thin metal matrix. This show closes May 10. Don’t miss it and also keep your eyes and ears open for the Jewelry and Metalsmithing Department sale in the fall semester. Many of the students featured here will have work for sale.
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| Brian Carter, Individual Medals of Freedom |
| susceptible to images milwaukee's online art review |
| Below: selected works from METALS! 07 exhibition |
