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From this viewpoint, the current exhibit of the recipients of Nohl
Fellowships for Individual Artists in 2005 is practically impossible to
interpret and hardly lives up to its promise. The show brings
together very diverse work of Nicholas Lampert, Fred Stonehouse
and Jason Yi, winners in the Established Artist category, and
Emerging Artists: Juan Juarez, Michael Julian, Mat Rappaport and
Steve Wetzel.
Fred Stonehouse’s absurdist, nightmare-like paintings define one
extreme of the exhibition. His work is almost iconic in Wisconsin
and has universal, if not mass, appeal through a successful
combination of bizarre imagery influenced by comics, tattoos,
religious and folk-art with slick execution and straightforward
compositions. On the other end of the spectrum, there are Steve
Wetzel’s works: simple, modest objects, very much in the vein of
Fluxus and amateurish-looking video that seemingly attempts to
question, if not subvert, the art circulation system from within.
Between these two, we get a survey or a taste of everything else that
is possible in art today. There is video: Mat Rappaport’s multi-
channel installation span, with its dramatic musical score and
thriller-like suspense created by the close following of two
mysterious trucks, seems to be an ironic commentary on the
permanent state of anxiety fed by today’s media into society. Jason
Yi’s video Familiar is, on the other hand, a personal and
philosophical meditation on memory and the way it shapes identity.
Yi’s sophisticated, ghost-like sculptures, Allusion to Diamond
Mountain, are ethereal embodiments of reminiscence and desire
created from mundane packing material. This is probably the most
visually alluring work in the entire exhibit. Interestingly, Yi does
something that artists have done for centuries: he takes an ordinary
thing and through inventiveness, technical mastery and intellectual
engagement (some might even call it magic), transforms it into an
object possessing its own presence, beauty and meaning. These
pieces are not just playful experiments. As the sculptures hover in
the dramatic lighting between acute physicality and haunting
phantom-like state, they seem to be capable of evoking powerful
emotional response stemming from the most subconscious
memories.
Video and three-dimensional constructions in the show are
complemented by photo-, print- and digital mixed media work of
Nicholas Lampert and Juan Juarez. Meatscapes, Lampert’s
signature series of photo-collages, infuses the idyllic American
landscape with visceral piles of items normally found on the butcher’
s counter, while his more recent work brings similar juxtapositions
into streetscapes and urban environments (hence, the visitors to
inova on the opening night were welcomed by a giant chicken).
Juarez, on the other hand, looks to the internet in order to investigate
gender stereotypes of fraternity “culture”. In the series Gun Show he
brutally faces us with jock masculine ideals by isolating objects of
snapshots from various web postings. Because of its directness
and unapologetic delivery, this might be the most provocative body
of work within the exhibit. Since the artist’s intervention into the
photos is extremely subtle (you have to know about it to realize it
took place), the work does not appear as what the general public
commonly understands as “art”. I suspect many would question
what images like this are doing in a gallery. Precisely because of
this fact, the social commentary of this series couldn’t be more
honest and straight to the point. Young, privileged white frat boy is
drunk, ridiculous and scary.
Finally, as if to balance out Juarez’s voyeuristic realism, Michael
Julian’s work, Errors of Closure, represents the cool and formal
approach to painting, where the artist sets up a very abstract and
specific problem the viewer is expected to work through.
Over all, the Nohl exhibit presents a wide array of media and
attitudes towards art-making. Each of the Fellows present a
distinctly different voice within the group. This selection could be
seen as a politically correct bow towards the diversity of today’s art
scene, picking the best out of almost every imaginable category as
far as medium and content are concerned. There is painting
(abstract and representational), sculpture, video, video installation,
mixed-media and conceptual intervention. There is work that ranges
from purely formal to socially engaged. However, the absence of
women among the Fellows strongly suggests that political
correctness was not the jurors’ primary consideration: we are back
to good old academia, where every department’s head is male. If
that is the case, the lack of dominating themes or media is a
disturbing and perhaps defeatist admittance that there might be
nothing today that is culturally significant. The jurors appear to have
refused to make a judgment about the type of work they find
outstanding among myriad phenomena.
I think this conclusion won’t seem overly dramatic to the public who
attended the jurors’ talk during the exhibit’s opening celebration.
While Nato Thompson might have attempted to charm the audience
with exuberant, yet easy-going personality and “guy-next-door”
attitude, his repeated admittance that he was “stupid” and that the
work was “beyond his comprehension” did not help the listeners to
gain insight into what the criteria for the Fellows’ selection were. As
a result of this simultaneously nonchalant and cautious curatorial
approach, the exhibition as a whole does not take any risks and
doesn’t provide a healthy forum for discussion about what might be
particularly relevant, not to mention radical, today. If everything is
good, how can you know what is great?
- Dorota Biczel Nelson
Dorota Biczel Nelson is an artist and instructor at UW-Milwaukee
and Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and a regular contributor
to Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email comments@susceptibletoimages.com
| Fred Stonehouse Aches and Pains |
| Mat Rappaport, span |
| Installation of works by Steve Wetzel |
| Installation of work by Jason Yi. |
| Nicholas Lampert, Machine Insect. |
| Juan Juarez, image from Gun Show series. |
Mary L. Nohl Fellowships for
Individual Artists 2005
INOVA (Institute of Visual Arts), Vogel Hall
through December 10, 2006.
Perhaps it would be safer to stay away from reviewing the Nohl Fellowships exhibition. When
substantial sums are involved (think of Nohl prizes as Nobel Prizes for local artists), the awards
might easily become a reason not just for great pride, but also for great bickering. To avoid
controversy (who needs it in a small community?), it is certainly easier to state that it is the best of
what’s produced in town rather than discuss the work in detail. Yet, exactly because of the fact that the
fellowships are associated with significant financial benefits and prestige, it is impossible not to ask
the question about what we learn from the exhibition and the state of artistic production today.
There are multiple reasons why juried shows are tricky to review. As every artist knows, there is not
just merit, but also a large dose of luck involved. To decide what constitutes the best, one must
establish careful and clear criteria that determine the answer. Jurors come into this process with their
own, possibly contradicting, critical agendas and the awards are the result of an often fragile
consensus that they manage to achieve.
Nohl Fellowships immediately became highly credible within the greater Milwaukee area because
the organizer and the administrators, Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund, Visual Arts
Milwaukee and UWM’s Peck School of the Arts, placed strong emphasis on bringing in high profile
jurors from outstanding cultural institutions outside of Wisconsin. This step was crucial in
establishing the Nohl Fellowships as relatively objective because they rewarded artistic production of
above-regional appeal. Therefore, I would hope to see the Fellowship exhibit as a significant
curatorial enterprise that goes beyond what is nice, hot and hip in Milwaukee. Considering the caliber
of jurors and the ambitious aspirations of the fellowships, I’d expect the show to point out local work
of relevance to the contemporary art world at large. This kind of work is a part of important cultural
trends defining what art is today and what it might be in the future. I think that good curators act as
guides (or at least trend-setters) in the complex, pluralistic art world, sifting through diverse
production in order to select for the public ambitious work that might eventually have a chance of
acquiring historical status.
Individual Artists 2005
INOVA (Institute of Visual Arts), Vogel Hall
through December 10, 2006.
Perhaps it would be safer to stay away from reviewing the Nohl Fellowships exhibition. When
substantial sums are involved (think of Nohl prizes as Nobel Prizes for local artists), the awards
might easily become a reason not just for great pride, but also for great bickering. To avoid
controversy (who needs it in a small community?), it is certainly easier to state that it is the best of
what’s produced in town rather than discuss the work in detail. Yet, exactly because of the fact that the
fellowships are associated with significant financial benefits and prestige, it is impossible not to ask
the question about what we learn from the exhibition and the state of artistic production today.
There are multiple reasons why juried shows are tricky to review. As every artist knows, there is not
just merit, but also a large dose of luck involved. To decide what constitutes the best, one must
establish careful and clear criteria that determine the answer. Jurors come into this process with their
own, possibly contradicting, critical agendas and the awards are the result of an often fragile
consensus that they manage to achieve.
Nohl Fellowships immediately became highly credible within the greater Milwaukee area because
the organizer and the administrators, Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund, Visual Arts
Milwaukee and UWM’s Peck School of the Arts, placed strong emphasis on bringing in high profile
jurors from outstanding cultural institutions outside of Wisconsin. This step was crucial in
establishing the Nohl Fellowships as relatively objective because they rewarded artistic production of
above-regional appeal. Therefore, I would hope to see the Fellowship exhibit as a significant
curatorial enterprise that goes beyond what is nice, hot and hip in Milwaukee. Considering the caliber
of jurors and the ambitious aspirations of the fellowships, I’d expect the show to point out local work
of relevance to the contemporary art world at large. This kind of work is a part of important cultural
trends defining what art is today and what it might be in the future. I think that good curators act as
guides (or at least trend-setters) in the complex, pluralistic art world, sifting through diverse
production in order to select for the public ambitious work that might eventually have a chance of
acquiring historical status.