Susceptible to Images: a Milwaukee art review

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susceptible to images

There are a couple of possible approaches. If you want to
promote your local art community and you live in a formerly
industrial Midwestern burg such as Milwaukee, you can move in
two directions: You can either try to puff up your feathers and sell
your “sophistication and quality of life” which is the
overwhelmingly common approach or you can hunker down and
celebrate what gives your community its essential charm and
character at the great risk of just reinforcing stereotypes or
becoming the laughing stock of the international art world.

The organizers of Milwaukee’s first international art fair took the
latter route and brilliantly accomplished the seemingly
impossible. They seamlessly and sincerely welded together
beer, bowling, brats and polka music with highbrow art product.
And they did not take the kitschy or demeaning route, whereby
they held the art fair in a homey bowling alley/bar site just to be
cool and laud ironic sophistication above the “joke.” No, they did
this earnestly, with respect to Milwaukee traditions and the
brotherhoods of bowling and polka dancing, and essentially, they
brought the mountain to Mohamed.

Somehow, the four organizers of this event, John Riepenhoff,
Nicholas Frank, Tyson Reeder and Kiki Anderson coaxed about
30 galleries from Los Angeles, New York, Oslo, Miami, San
Juan, Copenhagen, Zurich, Winnipeg and more to bring their
wares to Milwaukee for this two day event. They transformed the
Polish Falcon Hall in Riverwest, which normally hosts banquets
and parties, into slick aisles of small booths, looking as
professional as Chicago’s art expos. (It actually was Thomas
Blackmon of Chicago who provided the walls and installation).
On Friday night, the place was packed from the moment it
opened at 5 p.m. to an hour after it was scheduled to close at 9 p.
m. One could wander through the booths, and then repose in the
adjacent tavern portion of the hall, an authentic smoky taste of
Milwaukee’s neighborhood, community spirit, which,
undoubtedly, the gallery folks from Oslo or California loved.
Saturday was a rainy, nasty day, but once again, the expo was
packed. Surprisingly, Saturday’s crowd was quite mixed, with a
good number of older browsers amidst the young, hip art crowd.

Milwaukee’s more established level of galleries would have been
proud to be a part of this, but the emphasis here was distinctly
second-tier “alternative” spaces that represent young, smart
artists. Two looming questions need to be addressed: How good
was the art and did any of it sell?

How good was the art? Well, not as good as one might hope.
There were few surprises here and perhaps because of the
transportation issues, much of the work was small and on paper.
Collage and drawing dominated. If there was an overall trend, it
was toward the modest expression of an intimate, personal style,
a kind of “notation” that defies high art finish and intent as it
insists on a kind of humility more akin to a greyhound bus trip
than air flight. But sometimes this refusal to look schooled simply
looked like ineptitude of both concept and technique, and way too
many of these gallery’s offerings seemed timidly sheltered under
the “we don’t want to look like we are trying too hard” cool reserve
of dispassion.

Of course, there was some really good stuff too. Morgan Lehman
of New York had a gracefully delicate watercolor painting of a
water fight by Laura Ball that effectively brought together the two
worlds of aloofness and gesture. This little painting, barely
noticeable amid the wall of other works, perhaps drew me in
because within its stylistic simplicity, it functioned as a “picture,” a
mini-drama. Most of the other work veered so determinedly away
from this type of pictorial encounter that this painting actually
looking refreshingly “new” and brave in contrast. On the same
wall, Andrew Schoultz’s patterned pen drawings on canvas
offered the other end of the conversation. But they worked equally
well. There was no “entering” Schoultz’s space, it was all surface
and object, with that cool raw simplicity of gesture, but done to
perfectly harmonize the formal and informal.

Other Gallery from Winnipeg showed only one large work on
paper by Simon Hughes called River Saga. This was a finely
rendered combination of drawing, abstraction and small
figurative stickers within a geometric, precisely drawn glaciated
environment.

This is going to sound horrifically xenophobic but the two
galleries that stood out in diversity and overall quality were our
local brethren: Green Gallery run by John Riepenhoff and Hot
Cakes run by Michael Brenner. Could I just be prejudice or did I
simply find comfort in the familiar? Perhaps. But these two
galleries both offered more range and spirit than many of the
others. (To be fair, they did not have to deal with the transportation
issues, giving them a distinct advantage).

Green Gallery featured work by local painter Peter Barrickman,
who orchestrates complex compositions of drawing, collage and
painting, yet maintains an airy tight reign on how he controls the
construction of the imagery. His work looked mature and
developed even though he’s still in his 20s. At the other end of the
spectrum, Green Gallery also featured work by Manu Sangari, a
self-taught artist from New Dehli, now living in Milwaukee. Upon
retirement, Sangari began making earnest little watercolor
paintings of New Dehli scenes and landscapes. The paintings
look self-taught, but also have a wonderful sense of Sangari’s
engagement with the process of painting. Beyond the images
themselves, each seems to indirectly reflect our in-born desire to
translate what we see into something we can share. Riepenhoff
discovered this artist’s work while delivering a futon to his home.

Hot Cakes featured artists from its “stable:” Nate Page, Barry
Carlson, Paul Kjelland, Matthew Kirk, Gary Gresl and newcomer
Noah Friedman, among others. With the affable Mike Brenner
fronting the enterprise, the gallery felt both sophisticated yet true
to its roots, in much the same way the International Art Fair
merged so seamlessly with the Polish Falcon Hall. Brenner
presents an interesting range of artists working at a consistently
accomplished level, yet, there’s also a scruffy edge that gives it all
a heightened tactility that feels a bit “Milwaukeean” somehow.

Art expositions offer a unique experience to the viewer. They allow
us to peruse a wide variety of art and force us to reflect on what
we are drawn to. The visitor sorts and siphons according to his or
her personal preferences, all the while, becoming increasingly
conscious of what those preferences lead them toward. These
fairs also offer inspiration to fellow artists. We see such diverse
expressions that it strengthens one’s own conviction to art
making and inspires greater risks and experimentation.

This first attempt at an art exposition that capitalized and
celebrated the essential small town nature of our Midwestern
locale rather than working to overcome or conceal it, clarified
how ambitious and well-connected are our youngish art
professionals. The underlying message of the fair was that
Milwaukee is cool because of its quirks, its beer and its taverns.
Who wouldn’t want to come here and warm their hands around a
bottle of Miller at a fine wooden bar with the comforting glow of a
TV in the corner and the clamor of bowling pins within earshot.
These artists and gallery dealers stay here because of this. The
galleries from Zurich and New York came here because of this.
As Riepenhoff said, “It was enticing to them because of the fun,
off-location. Putting contemporary objects in a real community
and a real space was exciting.”

How did the work sell? Brenner says that sales weren’t great, but
no one had high expectations. Perhaps if this team sponsors a
similar enterprise next year they will attract an even more diverse
audience and sales will increase. Let’s hope so.

- Debra Brehmer

Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.

Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com

Milwaukee International Art Fair

Falcon Bowl
801 E. Clarke Street
Milwaukee

Oct. 20-21, 2006

Milwaukee International
installation view.

Detail from River Saga by Simon
Hughes.

Work by Patrick Barrickman shown by
Green Gallery.

Hotcakes Gallery installation view.