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Hockey Seen: A Nightmare in
Three Periods and Sudden Death
Haggerty Museum of Art
Marquette University
13th & Clybourn Streets
Milwaukee
Now through Jan. 14, 2007
Three Periods and Sudden Death
Haggerty Museum of Art
Marquette University
13th & Clybourn Streets
Milwaukee
Now through Jan. 14, 2007
When you step off the elevator and onto floor two of the Haggerty Museum of Art, be sure and study
the items in a display case to your right. They are a beautiful introduction to “Hockey Seen: A
Nightmare in Three Periods and Sudden Death.” The case contains various items of
correspondence, much of it hand-written (a true artifact!). The earliest letter, dated 1972, details
aspects of producing “Hockey,” a multimedia dance presentation which debuted at Harvard the same
year. A poster hanging above the case informs that tickets to the debut event were $2.50 each.
The Haggerty exhibition is a look back at those combined ‘70s talents who made the original Harvard
production possible: aesthetician Nelson Goodman, visual artist Katharine Sturgis, choreographer
Martha Armstrong Gray, electronic music composer John C. Adams, and media design and
technology specialist Gerd Stern. The premise of the event, was to challenge the usual boundaries
between athletics and art, and you can view a video of the results. It is a fuzzy copy, but it does capture
the essence of masked and costumed dancers moving around in a variety of hockey-like stances. A
visiting couple sat down to view the video, thinking it would depict a genuine hockey match. They left
shortly after. Had they had more patience, they would probably have learned quite a bit about the
relationship between art and athletics.
Two of the sleek black and white costumes worn by the aforementioned dancers are mounted on
headless mannequins standing in the gallery, and no they don’t duplicate the heavily padded attire of
genuine hockey players, as dancers must be in flexible attire in order to freely move around. The
horizontal banding on the costumes is used in lieu of padding…to great effect I might add.
A grouping of seven white masks (made by Carol Swin), are mounted on a black wall, perhaps
signifying the “nightmare” aspect of the Hockey production. They certainly are creepy and threatening
and strongly suggest the masks worn by Freddy and Jason in horror films. They give you an idea of
what opposing teams in a real hockey game see during “face-off” when they meet on the ice to battle
over the puck.
The balance of the exhibition consist of groupings of black and white photographs, and most notably,
smartly mounted ink drawings by Sturgis, drawings which were projected on a wall behind the
dancers when they brought their combined efforts to fruition at Harvard. Lyrical in line, they are strong
but not overblown renderings capturing knees bent, shoulders hunched and hockey sticks at the
ready.
When aesthetician Nelson Goodman died in 1998, he bequeathed this entire archive to the Haggerty
Museum of Art. Curtis Carter, the museum’s director has long been involved in the American Society
of Aestheticians, and he says that “Arts education from Goodman’s perspective, is aimed at changing
and broadening human experience through engagement with visual art, dance, music, and literature
and connecting these experiences in other areas of knowledge in the sciences, the humanities and
the professional fields.”
Before leaving the museum, I stopped on the first floor to admire an 1898 bronze sculpture by Franz
von Stuck. Titled “Tanzerin,” (The Dancer), a good fit with what was going on one floor above. A
security officer at the front desk told me he was a free-lance photographer for our Admirals hockey
team, so I asked him what he thought about the exhibition. “It’s a façade in terms of relating to
hockey,” he remarked. I would add that should you allow yourself to study the premise driving the
exhibition, there is much to learn.
- Judith Ann Moriarty
Judith Ann Moriarty is a freelance Milwaukee writer and regular contributor to Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email comments@susceptibletoimages.com
the items in a display case to your right. They are a beautiful introduction to “Hockey Seen: A
Nightmare in Three Periods and Sudden Death.” The case contains various items of
correspondence, much of it hand-written (a true artifact!). The earliest letter, dated 1972, details
aspects of producing “Hockey,” a multimedia dance presentation which debuted at Harvard the same
year. A poster hanging above the case informs that tickets to the debut event were $2.50 each.
The Haggerty exhibition is a look back at those combined ‘70s talents who made the original Harvard
production possible: aesthetician Nelson Goodman, visual artist Katharine Sturgis, choreographer
Martha Armstrong Gray, electronic music composer John C. Adams, and media design and
technology specialist Gerd Stern. The premise of the event, was to challenge the usual boundaries
between athletics and art, and you can view a video of the results. It is a fuzzy copy, but it does capture
the essence of masked and costumed dancers moving around in a variety of hockey-like stances. A
visiting couple sat down to view the video, thinking it would depict a genuine hockey match. They left
shortly after. Had they had more patience, they would probably have learned quite a bit about the
relationship between art and athletics.
Two of the sleek black and white costumes worn by the aforementioned dancers are mounted on
headless mannequins standing in the gallery, and no they don’t duplicate the heavily padded attire of
genuine hockey players, as dancers must be in flexible attire in order to freely move around. The
horizontal banding on the costumes is used in lieu of padding…to great effect I might add.
A grouping of seven white masks (made by Carol Swin), are mounted on a black wall, perhaps
signifying the “nightmare” aspect of the Hockey production. They certainly are creepy and threatening
and strongly suggest the masks worn by Freddy and Jason in horror films. They give you an idea of
what opposing teams in a real hockey game see during “face-off” when they meet on the ice to battle
over the puck.
The balance of the exhibition consist of groupings of black and white photographs, and most notably,
smartly mounted ink drawings by Sturgis, drawings which were projected on a wall behind the
dancers when they brought their combined efforts to fruition at Harvard. Lyrical in line, they are strong
but not overblown renderings capturing knees bent, shoulders hunched and hockey sticks at the
ready.
When aesthetician Nelson Goodman died in 1998, he bequeathed this entire archive to the Haggerty
Museum of Art. Curtis Carter, the museum’s director has long been involved in the American Society
of Aestheticians, and he says that “Arts education from Goodman’s perspective, is aimed at changing
and broadening human experience through engagement with visual art, dance, music, and literature
and connecting these experiences in other areas of knowledge in the sciences, the humanities and
the professional fields.”
Before leaving the museum, I stopped on the first floor to admire an 1898 bronze sculpture by Franz
von Stuck. Titled “Tanzerin,” (The Dancer), a good fit with what was going on one floor above. A
security officer at the front desk told me he was a free-lance photographer for our Admirals hockey
team, so I asked him what he thought about the exhibition. “It’s a façade in terms of relating to
hockey,” he remarked. I would add that should you allow yourself to study the premise driving the
exhibition, there is much to learn.
- Judith Ann Moriarty
Judith Ann Moriarty is a freelance Milwaukee writer and regular contributor to Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email comments@susceptibletoimages.com