HE 'TOHHHMTO TOP
FEBRUARY/MARCH 1997 COMPLIMENTARY VOLUME 11, ISSUE 3
NOME Of t TNC CUNNINOrHAMS MtlWAUK C £, WISCONSIN •11BHL>1'
Song of the JUDITH ANN MORIARTY editor/publisher
MICHELLE GRABNER BRAD KILLAM Rainforest guest editors FRANCIS FORD photo editor
MEGAN POWELL calendar Cr 'out there' editor
THOMAS FORD
art direction/design
NICHOLAS FRANK
KARL PALOUCEK uw-mttwaukce intern
NIKKI MORAWSKI advertising director
DEBRA BREHMER THERESE GANTZ emeritus personnel
Printing by Port Publications Neal Gittleman, Conductor Frank Almond, Violin Milwaukee Symphony Chorus Lee Erickson, Director With this issue Art Muscle welcomes UW-Milwaukee graduate Nikki Morawski, poet & editor of Laughing Boy Review. Robert Cronin • Aurea Villa-Lobos • Uirapuru FRIENDS OF ART MUSCLE James Westwater • Vanishing Forest
(world premiere) (photochoreography) set to Burton & Kate Babcock Mike Judy Vaughan Williams • The Lark Ascending Catherine Jautz Bailey Kevin & Meg Kinney Villa-Lobos Chdros No. 10 Kit Basquin Joseph J Korom, Jr Gary Black Lance Lichter Roberto Sierra Tropicalia Arthur E. Blair Tommy Littmann Music that's evocative, fertile, and green will enchant you in Sister Cash Box Tim Martinez Karen Johnson Boyd Roderick Michael Mett a unique program inspired by the Rainforest and featuring Dorothy Brehmer Michael Miklas James Westwater's lush photography of the Costa Rican Bob Brae Karen S. Olscn rainforest, choreographed to a sublime score. David & Diane Buck Charles & Libbie Pcckarsky Daniel J. Burbach Robert Ragir Added attraction: Allen M. Young, Milwaukee Public Museum's Ellen & Joe Checota Sam & Toby Recht Vice President for Collections, Research, and Public Programs presents Rita Chellman Margaret Rozga "Journey into the Tirimbina Rainforest Preserve,' Sam & Don Chortek Jordan Sensibar with breathtaking images of this fragile environment. Bill Christofferson David & Alyce Smith John Colt & Ruth Kjaer Richard & Julie Staniszewski Friday, March 14,11:15 am Demetra Copoulos Eric D.Steele Saturday, March 15, 8:00 pm Giles & Polly Daeger Max & Tybie Taglin Sunday, March 16, 7:30 pm Tony DePalma Rikki Thompson, Earthscapes Perry Dinkin Cardi Toellner Uihlein Hall, Marcus Center Patti Donahue Nicholas Topping Beth Eisendrath Carolyn & Leon Travanti Sponsored by Kathryn M. Finerty William & Janet Trcacy Bank One Matt Fink Anne Wamser Frogtown Framing Charles F. Wickler Gwendolyn Diaz Hankin
To become a FRIEND OF ART MUSCLE, send a check for$7 5 and we will place your name on the masthead. You will receive Wisconsin's only fine art publication for two years.
Art Muscle (ISSN 1074-0546) is published bi-monthly by Art Muscle- Milwaukee, Inc., 901 W. National Ave., Milwaukee, Wl 53204, (414) 672-8485. Third Class postage paid at Milwaukee, WI 53202 and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Art Muscle, 901 W. National, Milwaukee, WI 53204.
Entire contents copyright © Art Muscle-Milwaukee, Inc. All rights reserved, except in reviews. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Art Muscle is a trademark of Art Muscle- Milwaukee, Inc.
Subscription rates in continental U.S.:$20 one year; elsewhere, $28 one year. MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Andreas Delfs, Music Director Designate Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Artistic Advisor Doc Severinsen, Principal Pops Conductor
2 Art Muscle GIUE STUFF. ARRIVAL OF GET STUFF. AIDS A GOOD CAOSE. IN MUSICAL SHOP. Survival/Revival sells THEATRE, furniture, collectibles, clothing, music and more. DONATE. Survival/Revival will gladly pick up your larger pieces. Drop-off donations are accepted during store hours.
This award-winning show opened at Chicago's Goodman Theatre to rave reviews! UALENTINE'S DAY TAG SALE March 19-April 6,1997 February 14-16 Up to 75% off! Call the Broadway Theatre Center box office at 291-7800. Milwaukee's Best Resale Shop 246 East Chicago Street 291-2856 FAX 291-2857 SKYLIGHT E OPERA mm Hours: Tues-Fri 10-6/Sat 10-5/Sun 12-5/Closed Monday All donations are tax-deductible. Proceeds benefit the Milwaukee AIDS Project Intimate, Innovative (HAP), a service agency of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, Inc. (ARCW). and in English St Juke's Medical Center £292™^ AuroraHealthCare STARTING MARCH 3-OPtN MONDAYS IB PM
Original'Works of SZrt mmm :::::::*:*:*:*;*x*: RECENT WORKS ANNALISA BROMLEY • PAINTINGS DIAN GABRIEL • WATERCOLOR COLLAGES RANDY JAMES • ORIGINAL PRINTS MICHAEL JUDY • PAINTINGS CLAUDETTE LEE • PAINTINGS STEVEN MILLS MENAGERIE FRANCISCO X. MORA • PAINTINGS African Masks & Sculptures DAVID LOTTON • Glass RUTH OLENICK • PAINTINGS WES HUNTING • Glass CHERIE RAFFEL • PAINTINGS Indonesian Masks & Objects KAREN NAYLOR • Glass Polish Christmas Ornaments ACQUAETTA WILLIAMS • Glass Scent Bottles Jeanne Cohen Collection Marbles & Paperweights 111 PLAINS INDIAN DRAWINGS 1865-1935 PAGES FROM A VISUAL HISTORY January 31 - March 30, 1997 View the diversity, originality and artistry of drawings by Lakota, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Arapaho artists. Organized by The Drawing Center, New York, and The American Federation of Arts. Made possible with generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Additional funding provided by National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. A project of ART ACCESS II, a program of AFA with major support by the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. Philip Morris Companies Inc. sponsors the national tour. Local sponsor: The Indian Community School of Milwaukee. Inc., with additional support from Miller Brewing Company. MILWATTKEE Wohaw. Kiowa Portraits, (detail), 1877. Pencil and crayon. Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. ART MUS 750 N. Lincoln Memorial Dr. 414-224-3200 EUM Art Muscle 3 Contents Vienna Chamber Orchestra with Philippe Entremont, conductor & Helen Huang, piano Tuesday, February 4-7:30pm WORDS & MUSIC with Claire Bloom, speaker; Eugenia Zukerman, flute; & Brian Zeger, piano Saturday, March 8-8:00 pm Emerson String Quartet & Yefim Bronfman, piano Tuesday, March 18-7:30pm Fine Arts Quartet & Borodin String Quartet Tuesday, April1-7:30 pm Pae White Dawn Upshaw, soprano & Eugenia Zukerman, installation view Richard Goode, piano (lute Tuesday, May 13-7:30 pm McCoy Tyner Trio with Bobby Hutcherson Saturday, February IS, 8:00 pm Features Nicholas Payton Quintet & Jacky Terrasson Trio Saturday, March 15, 8:00 pm On Young Art in Los Angeles 7 Sonny Rollins Crazy Gang of Miscreants 10 Saturday, April19, 8:00 pm Smoggy Abstraction: An Interview 11 Chicago Thoughts on L.A. 12 Programming Attitude: An Interview 14 A One-Slap Play 16 My T. V. Screen is 94 Feet Long 18 The Salad Years? 19 We Try Harder 20 Canada on a Cocktail Napkin 21 Veneer Plywood 22 Departments Poetry/About Poetry 30 Calendar/Out There 26 The art world has been a wonderfully turbulent environment for IN MEMORY OF PLEASURE longer than we've been around. Los Angeles is now throwing the CONTEMPORARY PAINTINGS EXPLORING THE SUBVERSIVE POTENTIAL OF BEAUTY lightning bolts. JANUARY 26 - MAY 11, 1997 We'd like to thank Judith Ann Moriarty, Francis Ford and Thomas MARC DENNIS JULIE HEFFERNAN JEAN LOWE THOMAS WOODRUFF KATHLEEN. GIUE DAVID KROLL ROSALYN SCHWARTZ BRENDA ZLAMANY Ford at Art Muscle for their support of L.A. Muscle. A very spe cial thanks to the contributing writers and artists for their gen CONCURRENT EXHIBITIONS: erosity. EUNICE KAMBARA: KISS OF LIFE, KISS OF DEATH FRED H.C. LIANG: BETWEEN RIVERS AND VALLEYS JIM BARSNESS: ICONS OF COMIC RELIEF AT ARTSPACE IN KOHLER VILLAGE FEBRUARY 9 - APRIL 27, 1997 THROUGH MARCH 23, 1997 Guest Editors: Michelle Grabner Brad Killam JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER 608 NEW YORK AVENUE, P.O. Box 489, SHEBOYGAN, Wl 53082-0489 Cover/Back Cover: Home of the Cunninghams, 1995, Mark 414.458.6144 HOURS: M-F 10-5, TH 10-9; WEEKENDS 12-5 FREE ADMISSION Bennett. Collection of Eric Mellencamp, Seal Beach, California. THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN MADE POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM THE WISCONSIN ARTS BOARD AND BY CORPORATE/FOUNDATION DONORS. Courtesy of Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica. 4 Art Muscle Professional Theatre mm KATIE LINDA Training Program Dir*LJ &/l A hi presents GINGRASS GALLERY WAR... two generations, two views All My Sons by Arthur Miller The story of a family coming to terms with love and loss in wartime. VISTAS, Feb. 6 through March 1 VESSELS & UWM Studio Theatre 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. VERDIGRIS mGALLEN CRAIG L0SSING & DAVID LORY HAMn Tl IRMFH wnnn^M WFQQFI BILLJAUQUETBRONZ " E IHE HEART OF AMERICA J r r by Naomi Wallace . ,$.~, ,..^.0.:, .. •;:•;•.] :f*i;|-^gffffT ''^&^'''^f" ' ^f^|tfS; DAVID MARSH A DISTINCTIVE A drama about love and war in the Persian Gulf. COLLECTION OF Feb. 13 through March 1 KATIE GINGRASS GALLERY UWM Studio Theatre 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. 241 NORTH BROADWAY CONTEMPORARY MILWAUKEE, Wl 53202 JEWELRY PRESENTED For ticket information and showtimes - please call PHONF 414 989 08^ IN THE KATIE the UWM Fine Arts Box Office at 229-4308 FAX 414 289 9255 GINGRASS GALLERY 3055 N. Brookfield Brookfield, Wl 53045 41 4-780-061 3 Open Tues-Sat Proudly Presents JOHN R. WILLER Pictured "Front Street Blues" Acrylic 22" x 24" Art Muscle 5 DanceFindings: MILWAUKEE BALLET Robert Ellis Dunn Videodance Installation Basil Thompson, Artistic Director January 30-March 30 Opening Lecture: "Reflections on the Development of V America," by Fred Barzyk, WGBH Boston PRESENTS A WORLD PREMIERE OF Reception: following the lecture, 7-9 p.m., at trie Museur THE Symposium: "Robert Ellis Dunn and American Contemi 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Saturday, February 1, at the Museurr Haggerty Mu 5TREBIRD ;:•-" :::: by Ed Burgess )aily Also featuring David Parsons' Dc ngs was created b; Re BACHIANA and M< Kathryn Posin's Hi :3S-J.~r. :, - \ ;.:•: :::r BACH'S LUNCH W of 'WE FEBRUARY 6-9 at the MARCUS CENTER ' 273-7206 or 643-7677 Special Group Discounts! Call Lisa at the Ballet (643-7677). PRFSFNTMUSIC FEBRUARY 28, MARCH 2 & 4, 1997 Kevin Stolheim, Artistic Director \ lOsEASQN T T CHARLES ALLIS ART MUSEUM auiata m Exhibitions thru April 1997 Treasures from the Allis Vault & Recent Gifts to the Great Hall The Hobbit Series and other etchings by German artist COMPANY Michael Kutzer February 2-23 :1i John W. Clark The Art of Picture-Making March 2 - 29 Slide/lecture, March 16 at 2 p.m. League of Milwaukee Artists 44th Annual Exhibition • April 6-May 11 Valentine Gift Workshop Sunday, February 9 at 1:30 p.m. MARCH 22,1997Q:0OFM Create dream pillows and Verdi's Classic Opera of Love, Sacrifice & Tragedy! roseball pomanders for TICKETS ^ your special valentine A $18 * $14 UIHLEIN HALL / MARCUS CENTER FOR THE ARTS Supplies included ~ Fee $30 HART MUSEUM Ji.mkv- ou yonnMILWAUKE ljn E AH ARTS 750 North I jnrolc°i» nMemoria Manorial lunv Drive e Sung in Italian with English Supertitles HMmWEST 1801 N. Prospect Ave. Milwaukee • 278-8295 414.2737206orl.800.472.4458 $2 Admission/Children & Members Free 6 Art Muscle ON YOUNG ART IN L.A. by Jan Tumlir Having spent the greater part of my artistic education chopping away at the totem of Clement Greenberg, I, along with most of the artists of my generation, hopped over the residual stump with out so much as a glance at its desiccated contents, What is at stake, then, is nothing less than so eager were we to broach the "next" theoretical the definition of a moment, the construction of an level. French Post-Structuralism had just begun historical trajectory to support it, the emplacement making inroads into our curriculae, attended by a of its representative officials, and their representa vast referential complex of extreme and profuse tives, and so on. A certain version of the facts was That this A-list does not in fact represent intellectual refinement, comprising elements of presented in "Defining the Nineties," an exhibition much of a break with the recent past should sur Marxism, Sociology, Linguistics, and curated by Bonnie Clearwater for the Museum of prise no one. Most of the above maintain an oper Psychoanalysis, all of which would eventually sub Contemporary Art in Miami; a list of "hot" LA. ative connection to the "appropriation" strategies of sume the existing talk of colors, shapes and lines to artists was drawn up through the hyper-objective the 80's, and by extension to Duchamp, whose become the proper and privileged discourse of art. process of "consensus" (???) and laid down like the impact on present-day production remains There was, of course, some resistance to the daunt timeless law. As "the ones to watch," it is hard to absolutely central, despite all claims to the contrary. ing reading lists the more "advanced" teachers foist argue with the particular selection of Jason Most similarly question the ontological limits of their ed upon us, and yet considering the momentous Rhoades, Martin Kersels, Chris^ Finley, Jennifer chosen medium in relation to prior models of mod impact of this shift from a formal to a critical para Pastor, etc., etc., and if, like the show's organizers, ernism as well as the current landscape of capital digm, the transition was surprisingly smooth. Could you happened to see "Helter Skelter" as the ultimate and commodity. In truth, critique has not been dis it be that our new paradigm was already well on the expression of this city's artistic identity, and if you missed at all, but relegated to the background as a way to becoming, itself, a stale orthodoxy? likewise count Paul McCarthy, Chris Burden and kind of given or a priori. Mike Kelley, for instance, Now that the idea-oriented, post-studio Mike Kelley as its guiding lights, then you will no is as "art about art" as they come, and his consider model of semi-production which, in the 80's, was doubt agree. Actually, it is not the choices them able influence on the younger generation has been promoted as the ne plus ultra of noncompliance has selves which are narrow or limiting so much as the much more academic than is usually acknowl been revealed for the institutional style it always criteria they are made to validate. "With an aesthet edged. Over and above its various references to was, the prospects have dimmed substantially for an ic far from so much 80's 'art about art,'" writes rock and roll or abjection, that is, Kelley's work only oppositional art. It would seem that theory in gen Michael Duncan in the catalogue, "the 90's works comes together in a dialectical relation to its partic eral has fallen into disgrace, yet in the ensuing have much to say about nature, culture, sexuality ular doxa-Minimalism. In much the same way do scramble to re-embrace the aesthetic, I wonder if and the body." The point being that the "relaxed the paintings of Steve Hurd and Kevin Sullivan, to we can still distinguish the progressive from the pluralism" currently reigning over the artworld is in cite just two salient examples, elaborate a sustained merely reactionary initiatives. That is, should we fact marred by its fair share of prejudices. "Art critical dialogue with an art-historical source which brace ourselves for something authentically new about art," for one thing, is out, out, out! finally overwhelms their specific pop culture refer- and different, or just the return of a repressed for malism? , In the November/December edition of Art Issues, the critic and self-proclaimed voluptuary MaLin Wilson ventured this assessment "We have just passed through a period of such immense silli ness, . a period when bloated, convoluted, mind- dulling theoretical texts were perpetrated in the name of art, that it feels salutary to simply send up a flare signaling the survival of a visceral enthusi ast." And she is not alone to celebrate the demise of critique—the sentiment is echoed by more and more of L.A.'s most prominent art writers such as David Pagel, Dave Hickey and Michael Duncan, all of whom have zealously taken up the cause of beauty as an antidote to the deconstructive excess es of the past several years. Hickey's "Invisible Dragon" identifies the enemy in no uncertain terms—it is politicized, dogmatic, self-referential and worst of all, state-sponsored. In other words, it is everything that we, who went to CalArts in the late 80's, were taught art should be. Carter Potter Frankly, 1993 installation view ents. Expressionist allusions abound, metonymical- ly in Hurd's wild and drippy depictions of women's magazines and other low-pop ephemera, and metaphorically in Sullivan's proficiently rendered defacements of album covers. In the latter case, especially, the proposed content is already so thor oughly imbricated within modernist discourse that it becomes a kind of foil, a means for retracing art's complex trajectory through the mainstream and the nascent subjectivity of the artist-to-be. continued next page Art Muscle 7 A related impulse guides the work of Pae White, whose hyper-coded amalgamations of image and object likewise reenact the popular dispersal of various high-modern and avant-garde formats into an array of everyday, utilitarian effects. The rede ployment of these well-traveled motifs within their originating context provides them with a bleak and somewhat nihilistic punch-line, as though cement ing their inauspicious fate at the tail-end of the great Utopian experiment. There is a political side to these maneuvers, of course, yet White generally tends to play against it. Duchampian to the core, she leaves the work open to as many interpretations as possible. Her po-faced installation of Eames chairs and patterned fabrics by 70's icon Vera, mounted a few years back at MOCA, was exemplary ;rf*\ -,..-, :.yr.s.1* Kevin Sullivan Goat's Head Soup with Melted Chocolate, 1991 oil and wax on canvas in this regard; unattended by the slightest com Charles Long is another artist mining mentary, it could have passed for an innocuous 60's/70's design as the site of a popular, and often design exercise. The same can be said for much of kitsch, recuperation of avant-garde strategies. "Our the work of her onetime companion, Jorge Pardo, Bodies, Our Shelves," his most recent exhibition at although here the politics are pushed closer to the Shoshana Wayne, consisted of various wall-hung foreground. His subtly perverted architectonic and and free-standing support structures entirely over furniture pieces take up a precarious residence in run by the artist's oddly overdetermined brand of the zone between idea and object, to undermine biomorphism. Bataille's definition of Surrealism as and destabillize what Marx described as the "fantas an assault "against architecture" is wholly service tic" correspondence between social relations and able to Long's program, and to that of White and "the relation between things." Reconstructing a Pardo, as well as Sam Durant, Jason Rhoades and to classic Le Corbusier sofa entirely from plumbing a lesser degree, perhaps, Jacci Den Hartog and (shit) materials, or conversely outfitting a generic Carter Potter, all of whom rehearse their anti-con- folding utility table from Target with high-end birch, structivist art through techniques of unreason and Pardo's modus vacillates between an extreme, elite disorder. aestheticism and rustic wood-shop humility. Bataille saw architecture as the law solidi Precisely because it is schizophrenic, his particular fied, an emblem of suffocating authority to be sensibility, or taste, functions to decode and recode debased at every opportunity, which is exactly how taste in general, exposing the social forces which Pauline Stella Sanchez approaches the corpus mod hold it in place as an hierarchical system even as it ern painting. For the past several years, her undoes them. grotesque encrustations of muddied pigment have referenced the color-field as a monumental repres Cut the HfitStf** sion in its own right. Yet her recent proliferations of ink-pen drawings, typically dispersed on the floor in fin-de-siecle spirals, go beneath and beyond the surface of painting to explode its structural design and foundations into a series of random, molecular whorls. Likewise locked into a destructive/produc tive struggle with the post-painterly canvas is Adam Ross, whose weapon of choice, alongside his brush es and paints, is a belt-sander. With tactics liberally imported from the New Physics, he scratches deliri ous Mandelbrot vistas of pure chaos into the mute chassis of the color-field. Like Sanchez, this artist has recently turned to drawing as a way to clarify his Infill theoretical position. In conjunction with the psy- tips chedelicized monochromes, his latest anemic and Ffip$ melancholy depictions of sci-fi cityscapes figure Page 42 nothing more clearly than the collapse of the Utopi #*.>* *>* * y< < *• » ' "'•>' an plan. Steve Hurd # cwto ims> PET ««M v±sm" the Hew Watermelon Desserts, 1994 ••'•''m MoafWSs fBIlS oil on canvas 8 Art Muscle Ross treats painting as a sculptural object, and in LA. there is a rich and varied tradition of just this sort of categorical conflation stretching back at least as far as the Light & Space and Finish Fetish schools. Whether it is more a case of painting becoming sculpture or sculpture becoming paint ing, such niggling formalities continue to inspire impassioned debate here, and perhaps only here, which goes some way toward explaining the influ and autonomous objecthood, yet even here, or to the vengeful and moribund strategizing of the ence of the above-mentioned critics. Yet, any especially here, things are not as they at first appear. present. In the meanwhile, LA. underwent a trans attempt to establish a direct genealogy between cur Indeed, the outward simplicity of these works con formation of its own from sun & fun to terradome rent experiments in pictorial objecthood and those ceals an unusually twisted and tangled web of refer central, and as thick clouds of "noir" gathered of the 60's and 70's will have to be interrupted, I ence which points, of course, to the Minimalist around the "sunshine muse", the art turned inex think, by a crucial critical moment, a decisive shift in sculpture of Robert Morris, but, in a more round orably to matters of a darker sort. The encroach the consciousness of the West Coast artist which about and parodic sense, to painting as well—like ments of the spectacle-commodity economy into transformed this space between painting and sculp miniature versions of any one of Liz Larner's rooms, every sector of natural experience are unfailingly ture from a neutral zone of a-historical play, to a or the walk-in Stella that Carter Potter mounted registered in the hostile and paranoid protestations thoroughly historicized site of hostile contention. recently at Rio Hondo college, they figure painting at of artists like Kelley, Burden and McCarthy, and Adam Ross accedes to the new-ness of the height of its self-containment, literally folded in these only become more extreme and more alienat sculpture through a defacement of painting, Pauline on itself and rendered incommunicado. ed as we work our way down to their younger Stella Sanchez does the same through defilement; The list goes on and on. Fred Fehlau, Jill charges. Even the most "user-friendly" among in either case, the implications of the shift are over Giegrich and Jim Iserman all continue to "paint" them—take Sharon Ellis or Jennifer Pastor, both of whelmingly negative with respect to the idea of his with construction and "home-improvement" materi whom have undertaken to revitalize the most ano tory. Pae White takes a somewhat more utilitarian, als, as do Michael Gonzales, John Souza and Darcy dyne genre of all, the landscape—are finally much though no less impertinent, approach, literally turn Huebler—one generation apart, these artists never closer to schizoid than sublime. No wonder, then, ing several of her plexi-monochromes into table- theless share a subtly critical and ironic sensibility that this intermediate, hybrid moment continues to tops. Working in the opposite direction, exactly, which is wholly lacking in the work of, say, Charles exert such an irresistible pull on the imagination of Jorge Pardo has manufactured a few "paintings" of Arnoldi, Eric Orr and Laddy John Dill. Between the West Coast artist: it is a kind of zero degree, the his own by applying a mixture of veneers and fin these two generations and the one preceeding, point at which painting, itself, becomes a found ishes to standard sheets of plywood, which he then something happened to severely cramp the easy object, as strange as anything released by the leans against the wall, "McCracken-style." going relations of art and everyday life. The Disney corporation, and just as susceptible to cre Liz Larner's installations of the past few romance of popular culture, the industrial sphere ative mistreatment. Why has the insistent negativity years have also involved the materialization in three- and mass product, which once propelled art to the of young L.A. art become such a critical blind-spot? dimensional space of flat, painterly information; a brink of the real, turned all at once sour, giving way A recent article by a prominent L.A. critic on the lat piece by piece transposition of the pictorial complex into the realm of tangible objects—from line to string and chain, from the idea of illusionism to the mirror. Carter Potter's entire career up until now can be charted along a quite similar course of continual vac illation between the poles of painting and sculpture. Like Lamer, Potter plainly avoids a harmonious fusion of the two, preferring to maintain his work in a state of formal suspension and indeterminacy, thereby prolonging indefinitely the process of deconstruction and reconstruction of the one medi um by the other. The sculptural cubes which peri odically crop up in the work of both of these artists come closest to realizing a former ideal of integrated Russell Crotty Three Large Atlases, 1996 installation view est presentation of MOCA's contemporary acquisi tions entitled "Just Past" put it all into perspective, I think. Slouching past one baffling exhibit after another, the writer's confusion quickly turned to anger, prompting him to dismiss not only Anne Goldstein's admittedly inauspicious installation, but most of the work as well. Impossibly dense and "inscrutable," here, according to him, were some prime examples of "80's art" indulgence. Yet, beck oning from just across the way was Paul Schimmel's "Images of an Era," and though this selection of Abstract Expressionism, Pop and Minimalism hadn't impressed the writer so much in the past, on this day it was just the thing. A small epiphany fol lows—how alive, how dazzling, how deeply satis fying it all is! And so it goes, full speed ahead, as the course is set back to the future again. Jan Tumlir is an artist, writer and regular contribu tor to Art Week, living in Los Angeles. Art Muscle 9 Crazy Gang of Miscreants by Tony Tasset Could there be a wider market net cast in the pair ing of Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny in the recent Warner Brothers film, "Space Jam"? I attended the Chicago premier recently with my five-year-old son, and as we bonded in the theater, our skin aglow in sparkling Technicolor, a feeling of help lessness overwhelmed me. Unlike my son, I was well aware that I was paying good money to watch a 90 minute commercial. But it was the unrelenting quality of the production which unnerved me: the quick cuts, the feeling that every joke, every gor geous frame had somehow been market tested. Paul McCarthy Don't get me wrong; I'm a good consumer. I thrill at The Bunkhouse, 1995-96 the sheer spectacle of capitalist seduction. But occa installation view sionally the grinding regularity of contrived cute- ness, overpumped sexuality, political correctness, and the sheer cleverness of the modern sales pitch becomes simply too much. I long to strip the pre tense from our American culture and see it for what it is—base. Like the animals' drive to reproduce, capitalists drive to get more money. Which brings me finally to why I so appreciate the California-based performance artist-turned-sculptor, Paul McCarthy. McCarthy's world is the American dream turned inside out, a brief fissure in the glowy veneer of so-called normal life. In largely impro vised performances, video installations and mecha nized tableaus, McCarthy has introduced us to a host of deranged folk heros, mutant cartoon loonies and dysfunctional daddies. He's utilized baby dolls, rubber masks, ketchup, mayonnaise and meat to take his audience through a messy catharsis: puk ing, shitting and fucking his way through the American landscape. No taboo is left unbroken in his all-out assault on the family, colonialism, the media and of course Art itself. One can't help but think that this is what Jerry Springer's show should really do. For his most recent exhibition at Luhring Augustine Gallery in New York, McCarthy has created "Ya-Hoo Town", a slice of the old West complete with a full- scale saloon, bunkhouse and teepee. The town is inhabited by giant-headed mechanized figures, a confused menagerie of cowboys, Indians and ani mals. Because it is a McCarthy, the figuresengag e in all manner of psycho-sexual behavior. The action is Paul McCarthy viewed from open windows and knotholes. In a The Saloon, 1995-96 particularly effective sequence, a big-headed installation view blonde spins around, bent over, exposing to the audience a grotesquely generic hole. As the action continues, the blonde comes to an abrupt stop, slowly turns her head, and stares right at us with a mm glassy-eyed yet accusing look. Meanwhile, a gun a toting cowboy masturbates, oblivious to the action. The point here may be a bit cliched by now— America was born out of violence and misogyny. The effect, however, is no less disturbing. "Ya-Hoo Town" obviously references Disneyland. But this town is broken, too old and crude to com pete with the slick charms of modern technology and sales tactics. It is no longer useful as a produc er of commodity. Our crazy gang of miscreants have been banned to the back lot, left with their base instincts in a macabre ballet of fighting,fuckin g and drinking. Paul McCarthy The Saloon, 1995-96 Warhol once said: "I think everybody should be a •Sit it installation view (detail) machine." We are. Tony Tasset is an artist living in Oak Park, Illinois. He is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Illinois, Chicago. 10 Art Muscle SMOGGY ABSTRACTION: An RD: Artists in L.A. don't bother with that minutiae. Interview with Linda Burnham, LB: You also see a greater sense of play. It's not Roy Dowell and James anti-serious but risk taking. Scarborough by Michelle Grabner RD: LA. has developed under neglect and become something people are interested in. That sense of Los Angeles is a city that teeters on the edge of play Linda is talking about is similar to the way reality. Its geography places it at the end of the west European artists work and as a result a lot of ern world. Its caustic haze, morally bankrupt movie European artists and intellectuals are jumping over industry, gang controlled hoods and surplus of ille New York and looking at L.A. The fact that L.A. and gal immigrants are contradicted with the dream of its artists have developed without being under a becoming a cinema star, or at the very least a beach microscope is a real benefit. bum. These popular images of LA. lead those of us who don't live there to believe the City of Angels is a modern day Gomorrah on its own self-willed course to cataclysmic destruction. Except this time, devas tation won't be at the hand of God but the result of a tectonic burp in the earth's crust. Linda Burnham and Roy Dowell are two LA. Roy Dowell based artists whose works were featured in Smoggy Untitled(#664), 1995 Abstraction.- Recent Los Angeles Painting, curated collage, acrylic on paper by James Scarborough; a former Angelino himself. The following is an interview that took place during Linda and Roy's brief visit to Milwaukee in the fall of 1996. MG: Since the Dadaists, collage has been encoded as an artistic strategy to eschew linear thinking. Since both of you employ a decentered and discon tinuous approach to image making are you politi cally interested in new or alternative systems of meaning and discourse or is it more prominent in the late twentieth century to use collage with indif ference? LB: My use differs from the historical application Dennis Hollingsworth of collage. It's not as stubborn. It is a type of synco Yankee, 1994-95 pation. Some of the images I use may have auto oil and alkyd on canvas matic associations and this makes the other parts of the paintings carry equal weight. By juxtaposing clip art with patterns the images become unin MG: I have noticed an insurgence of young women MG: And much of this work engages beauty and formed. artists from L.A. on the national scene. Is this a part decoration. of the same phenomena? RD: My work is concerned with a moral stance—a LB: Pleasure. And the fact that artists are no democracy that is rooted in a certain kind of moral "The freshest and wildest work longer afraid of not being seen as smart or concep ity. Like Linda, I'm not interested in the hierarchy of being done in LA right now is by tual. sources. All imagery is open for discussion. But this women, 30 years old and younger, also has a moral edge—it's about everything being which, to borrow a phrase from the RD: This is something we had to fight against for of value and worth consideration. Buddhists, represents 'energetic so long. Finally we can say "Yeah, it's pretty and it's progress in the good'. To my way of supposed to be." Beauty is a driving force. MG: Edward Said addresses the criticality of col thinking, the heaviest of these inspired lage as a "fully articulated program of interference." beasts (ravenous studio hogs), at least MG: This brings us to James and Smoggy Each of the six artists in Smoggy Abstraction engage in the sculpture department (please see Abstraction. on some level the interrupted energies associated photography: Lisa Anne Auerbach and with collage or collage effects. Other LA. painters Sharon Lockhardt; video: Jessica JS: I was attracted to painting that happened to be that come to mind; Lari Pitmann and Laura Owens Bronson; language: Frances Stark; and both figurative and abstract. For example Linda's also use the shifting juxtapositions of collage. Is painting: Laura Owens, Monique Prieto work has both recognizable figures and decorative there a correlation between this language and the and Michelle Fierro-all phenoms) is the form. Roy's work is a little more complex but it is popular culture of the city? Is it a reactionary repeatedly named J.P., sweating it out still real—a lived experience. As a spectator I was response to the mass production of linear stories under the fluorescents. But the afore trying to reconcile the sources for this work and being manufactured in Hollywood? mentioned are only the tip of the ice what I saw was a critique of abstraction. It can either berg. There are tons more. And their be incredibly funny like David DiMichelle's painting RD: LA. artists engage in the sharing of informa older sisters, one and two generations of a submarine moving a Rothko painting or far tion. Promiscuity in the best sense of the word. New ahead, are supersonically compelling more subtle like Linda's "Burble" painting of a car York artists have a very different approach to their and horribly under-recognized. LA's toon figure amongst various differentiated work. In New York everyone has their slice of the older gals don't get wheeled out and shapes.We began the discussion with the idea of pie. The little niche they fiercely protect. In L.A. that applauded like at Yankee Stadium." collage and that is a very good way to describe the is not the case. work but I would analyze it in terms of simultaneity. Benjamin Weissman, "Seasonal L.A. is plural-centered. It's a big amoeba—it just LB: LA. is out there on the edge—the wild west Change: Benjamin Weissman on takes off. where rules don't apply. The same is true with the Jennifer Pastor," frieze art Artists in L.A. are not worried about their lin (November/December 1996) Michelle Grabner is an artist and writer living in eage. We can pull from anywhere. We know our Milwaukee. She is a regular contributor to frieze sources and all the references but we're not worried LB: Being a painter and a woman and having your and New Art Examiner. about why our stripes differ slightly from someone career take off after your first exhibition is more or elses. less the unprecedented part. As a painter at Cal Arts I was always having to defend my position to Baldessari who continuously asked, "Why are you making paintings?" That's not what young painters are facing now. RD: Quite simply the art world has thrown out a carcass—the carcass being painting—and women and marginalized individuals took the carcass and said, "Well okay, we'll make something of it." Linda Burnham Burble, 1994 oil alkyd, latex, resin on canvas Art Muscle 11 Chicago Thoughts on L.A. by David Robbins In my mind lately, to every passing thought about Los Angeles or its mercenary, transfixing culture of movies, TV, and pop music there is attached, like a • IraH lamprey, a feeling of boredom. Not "interesting" boredom, mind you. The old-fashioned, decidedly unironical kind. Having managed to build a modest public life from obsessing about what it has meant :si to have been raised by the entertainment culture headquartered in L.A. (there are days when I won der whether I've ever given hard thought to any thing else), the advent of boredom with the subject comes as something of a surprise. Actually, I don't know that the phrase "thinking about" accurately describes what takes wmmm&m9& place in the brain (in my brain at least, and very •••li possibly in yours) with regard to television, movies, %\ and pop music. Who, after all, thinks about oxygen? A long time ago—twenty years ago, thirty?— movies, TV, and pop music moved beyond simply reflecting or confirming our experience to become for us that more primal thing: experience itself, the real article. (Do the math; anything which had com ,;56EJiBIsP« manded so great a percentage of our waking time as have movies, TV, and pop music would have attained that same condition.) No wonder I can't remember the last time I "thought about" particular TV shows or particular movies or particular pop illlli songs as "texts" from which any kind of meaning was to be derived. Oxygen isn't a text Of course, there are plenty of ways other than textually to think about Los Angeles And Its Consequences. Patterns can be discerned, motifs detected. These can be bundled together to form configurations with macrocosmic proportions. t^tplillllll For instance, we can think about stardom, the fantastic idea that a human being should com &MHMNflHiiHttsUflH mand the attention of cameras and tape recorders (the startling idea that cameras and tape recorders 1 should be assigned to document selected presences M^^^^^^WI^^^BP^S among us). This particular level of engagement with LA. culture fades, though, and fairly rapidly, once you realize that stardom is a field of energy orga Him nized for the benefit of the cameras and the tape recorders. Human beings pass through this field— 1 some fleetingly, some lingeringly—while the cam eras and tape recorders remain, making of stardom jlfilll a more mechanical thing and, because not so human, not so compelling. III Jettisoning the stardom phase of our inter est, we move on to thinking instead about television and movies and pop music in terms of the culture they had created and are creating still, a culture thin as an image on celluloid but so widely dispersed and so seamless as to attain the condition of a topol ogy. Fascinating, this; the entire world has been quite rightly fascinated by it for some time now. Also quite interesting is the unprovable but just as equally undeniable correspondence between the thinness of the culture LA. exports and the radical ly dispersed physical landscape of that city, the inhabitants of which speak not of the distance between two points but of the time required to trav el it Problem is, this peculiar thinness sustains thought only for short periods. L.A. can do mar velous things with illusion, but evidently it hasn't found a way for thin not to be thin. *•<*• David Robbins Untitled, 1995 12 Art Muscle Moving on and upping the ante, we can think about what the new thin-as-an-image culture has done to the preceding culture, the old chewy lumpy good-for-us literary humanist culture of Europe and of America's East Coast After we've dried our tears we can then rethink the same mate rial from a more positive angle. Television and movies and pop music are not only the genuine indigenous American culture which unifies those who're exposed to them by offering commonality of experience, but, as they are distributed beyond our borders, they are as well the basis of a post-political world culture that is slowly effecting global unifica tion by processing out the differences that, so often in the past, have led to armed conflict. Quite remarkable, really, the range and depth of the ways it's possible to think about the indirect presence of Los Angeles in our lives, and not all of them are bad, either. So why should bore dom have attached itself to this subject? Is my hesi tancy to fully endorse the thing just the grousing of a middle-aged man whose private coordinates make him wary of L.A.'s promulgation of itself as a The mental gymnastics we go through to interest fountain of youth bent on keeping us eternally ourselves in L.A. and L.A. culture has about it the young by flooding our lives with childish things? Or strained condition a people feel when faced with is it just part of a larger irritation with the now having to accommodate an occupying force. Los perennial culture of Fabulousness (guilt for the mar Angeles and the culture it exports have not only keting of which is to be shared between L.A. and unified America, they have made of the rest of New York)? Ought my whininess to be dismissed as America a colony. The quilt of regional cultures has some minor fin de siecle response to the whole fin been replaced with a monolith culture; L.A. trans de siecle thing' mits, we receive. Whether the town's products are I wish. good or bad no longer matters, particularly; there is no way, now, to think about the place. Good colonists that we are, we send our revenues to the capitol, where they are distributed among the unelected, unimpeachable legislators in amounts out of all proportion to the services they render. Yet there exists some question as to whether anyone, colonist or free man, can maintain genuine interest in a place that gives them no choice but to think about it. Isn't the very fact that LA. assumes we're thinking about it precisely the point of entry of a certain condition of rot? This is what happend to Paris, after all, after it was for a time Capitol of the World's Imagination. This is what hap pend to New York. I believe it has begun happening to L.A. When any place in the world makes the assumption L.A. now makes—that it ought to occupy a major position in our imaginations no matter whether it's because we honestly regard movies, TV, and pop music as the gen uine creative miracles of the century or because we look upon those same exports and the hype which has come to attend them as a pathetic application of human energies—that place is operating in bad faith. Proceed in bad faith, and your audience leaves you. Happens every time. It's the first rule of entertainment. These days, we may think about L.A., yes, David Robbins Untitled (Self Portrait), 1987 but we also know that the event on which we have come to lavish our lives—The Social Miracle of Pop—has acquired the characteristics of (remaining consistent, metaphorically, with the pop monolith) the broken record, the endless movie sequel, the TV show in ceaseless syndication. Empires lose their sheen, eventually. L.A. assumes we'll find even this idea interesting, of course, "because it has to do with the idea of L.A.". But what if we don't' Maybe it's just the contrarian in me but when it comes to arrangements which take my acquiescence utterly for granted I'm inclined to vote with my feet, even when the articles of exchange in question are things that, truly, have brought me countless hours of delight, and even when there's no known place to go. Could be I'm just that unfor tunate thing, a thankless child. You'll have to figure that one out for yourselves. My favorite show's on. David Robbins is the author of The Dr. Frankenstein Option, The Camera Believes Everything and Foundation Papers: from the archives of The Institute for Advanced Comedic Behavior. Art Muscle 13 Programming Attitude: An Interview with Laura Owens by Rebecca Morris RM: There is a lot of talk about LA. being a great RM: Who are your friends in L.A.? Are they primar place for young artists. Is this true? ily artists, and do you talk about your work with them? Do these relationships involve studio visits, LO: LA. is a great place to live, for young people in insights and exchange of ideas—do they affect your general and especially for young artists. It doesn't studio work? take too much to have a nice life here. It is afford able and beautiful. I think most people who do not LO: I have some close friends who are artists, writ live here are intimidated by the expansive decen ers, and musicians. We don't talk about my work. tralized urban sprawl. I love to drive so that is not a We just hang out more or less. None of my friends, problem for me. There are a lot of young artists liv except one, are primarily making paintings. We ing in different pockets around the city. I think have similar tastes in many ways, which have noth because there are so many young art school gradu ing to do with the mediums in which we work. At ates from Pasadena Art Center, Cal Arts, U.C.L.A., the same time, we are all making very different- Otis, etc., many are deciding to stay in L.A. and looking objects, so it is interesting to look for the make it work for them. There isn't a gold mine of connections. I am planning on doing a show some opportunity out here; it is more a quality of life. time in the future with Frances Stark and Sharon «•—•» Frances Stark Hamburg, 1995 carbon on paper RM: What is it about working in L.A. that seems Lockhart. I know there are certain connections, but right to you, that makes you committed to staying because they are not readily obvious, it is difficult to there? identify them. LO: The friends I have made out here make me RM: How do you feel about people thinking that feel committed to staying. Also the ability to be iso you have an L.A. aesthetic? lated within a huge urban environment is somehow stabilizing and allows me the freedom to work. I LO: No one in L.A. has ever said that. I think it's can walk out my door, go to the store, go to the mall just people trying to get a handle on something they and not run into anyone I know, unlike New York know nothing about. Stereotyping makes you feel where it is inevitable you will see people you know good about yourself, like you know what's up. It's a at every bar, coffee shop, or street corner. Also there way to stop thinking. Human beings are inherently are many public parks, tennis courts, hiking trails, lazy. People will use any and every opportunity to beaches, and other places where I try to maintain a avoid thinking. They categorize, box things up and year-round outdoor healthy experience. These put them on a shelf. things make me feel like a normal person, not like an artist in a claustrophobic, forced community. The RM: How do you generate ideas for your work? art world is here, you just have to drive to it, instead of being constantly immersed in it. 14 Art Muscle LO: I think about two dimensional flat surfaces— how I receive them in the world, what their curren cy is, and the many ways of interpreting an illusion. I go to the library, the movies and museums. I watch a lot of television every day and use a computer almost every day. All of this enriches and tests my literacy in two dimensional visual culture. I don't take ideas directly from any particular place. I want ;«* to make paintings that are simply about looking at a painting," so fundamentally, that is where I start, though cither stuff floats in and out. RM: Currently, what are your major influences and why? LO: That's hard to answer. I feel open and con nected to most 20th century art; I like to look at everything and read everything. I listen to the Beach Boys, Snoop Doggy Dog and Gary Numan—they influence me in some way. I'm a sucker for anyone with a 'vision' and a sense of humor, of lightness: mm Preston Sturges films, Ad Reinhardt writing, Barnett Newman painting. The Mondrian retrospective Laura Owens blew me away. I love the film maker, Chris Smith, Untitled, 1995 metaphor and the symbolic in art. I have a distaste who made "American Job". I just saw the Magritte installation view for work that tries to describe "something else"; the show in LA. and thought I would hate it because passive. I don't want to be shuttled to the past or the images are so trite, but I loved it. I am addicted transported to the future. When I think about per to Seinfeld. I am becomming interested in the ception, I am thinking about the person looking at Enlightenment, primarily the writing and the gar the artwork. I never think about "breaking the dens. I could keep going. I don't know how all of rules," for that involves posturing and an antagonis this influences me, but it does inspire me. tic approach. RM: You've mentioned that you want to present an RM: Why do you dislike the literal metaphor, the "attitude" in your work. What does that mean' symbolic in art' LO: Perhaps that isn't the best word. I believe it is LO: It is boring and uninteresting, which usually more important to decide how to approach making means the expectations surrounding the piece were art than to decide what to make. Developing an very low. When visual art depends heavily on a lit unique attitude is a program from which you make eral metaphor, or on symbolism, the work is often work. It is rewritten everyday and is not fully defin not as interesting as the intended reference. This able. It is the infrastructure. When I lecture to art creates a pathetic and dependent relationship. It's students, I tell them this rather than why I made this like a cover song, not only is it rarely as good as the painting or that painting. A long time ago "attitude" original, it's completely parasitic. Art that goes out might have been known as "ethics," or "morals." side of itself and bounces back, generates meaning That wouldn't make any sense now. and is much more interesting. Passive objects are the complete absence of anything problematic, RM: You use formulas and techniques for making which is just lame. A painting like Manet's realistic work, i.e. the rules of classical art training, "Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe," was completely unsettling, but you play with these rules. Why? if not shocking. It was very problematic and it was, and is, very interesting. However, to be shocking for LO: I'm interested in visual perception, though I'm that sake alone is infantile and boring. I also think not sure why—perhaps it is because it is taken for that art has to question itself, you can't just fill in the granted, or maybe it is because I dislike literal blanks according to the guidelines and get an "A" because you tried hard and did what you were told. Rebecca Morris is a painter living in Chicago. Laura Owens Untitled, 1995 installation view Art Muscle IS A One-Slap Play by Hirsch Perlman Right : I'm sorry, |u Left: You're not sorry. Right : I'm not sorry? (laughing) Right: Ouch! Goddamit! What the fuck was that all about? . • .slap me across the fucking face!; What the fuck was that all about? That fucking hurt motherfucker! (Right shoves Left hard) What the fuck is the matter with you? Left: Don't fucking push me again R i ght : Don't push me again? Don't slap me again! You started it. ... long pause Left : You started it. || Right: You started it. I didn't fucking slap you Left: You did.slap me. Right: I did not slap you. Left: Yes you did. ...pause Right: I did not slap you. IS Art Muscle Art Muscle 17 My TV Screen Is 94 ft. Long by Nicholas Frank The American public has received one of the great est holiday gifts ever, courtesy of Dick Ebersol and the good folks at NBC sports. Unveiled during the Bulls-Pistons basketball game on the night of December 25th, 1996, we viewers now have a whole new perspective via the Skycam. Appropriately named, this little wonder zings the length of the court on suspended cables, by remote- control, flying up and down the floor with the big men of the NBA. Suddenly the game is different. At once we're closer and unimaginably far away. We're courtside, with ultra-spectator Spike Lee, right in the middle of the action. The ball now arcs above our heads, instead of the warped angles we're used to getting from the above-and-45°-angle shots we've always had. And the speed! The game is real, now, What's the scale of a theater seat? Wait—let for the TV viewer. The players have never covered me start again. Close your eyes, and imagine the the floor so quickly, the passes have never zinged 'American landscape'. What does it look like? A so crisply, and the athletes have never looked so— wide view, stretching towards the horizon, a sunset, tall. So unimaginably tall. some trees, a cowboy or two, a movie set, some Come to think of it, this might bring the skyscrapers in the distance, trash-strewn streets, whole thing crashing down. That fragile scrim of taxicabs everywhere, panhandlers, endless fields of illusion that allows us inert viewers to project our corn, cows, rolling hills, rainforests, huge moun selves into the players, into the careening, super tains, deserts, frozen lakes, dirty rivers, polls.:. star world of fist-pumping basketball, has just The funny thing is that it doesn't take any received a tear. They looked smaller before (well time at all to look at one of Ruscha's paintings, no not exactly) but the camera angle was removed matter how big. They are instants, flung into inertial enough, high enough, so that their height was, oh, motion, the foreground of a boundless picture with manageable. There was at least room for specula an ever-changing backdrop of meaning. tion. That crucial bit of room that the human imagi Ruscha gets close to both the scale of a the nation needs to squeeze itself into, (to play unfet ater seat (the limits of the imagination of the movie tered by reality), is suddenly missing. goer), and to the real American landscape: the cin Ed Ruscha is courting the same disaster. ematic memory. These paintings show you what's He's been painting with the Skycam, bringing the there. Bland, foggy, just characterless enough to be pan shot into painting. Roscoe's House of Chicken, universal, (the great Marxo-capitalist ideal), these 1994, is twenty inches high by twenty-six feet long! dare I say homogenous landscapes are echoes from Of course it's a painting, so I guess you'd have to our collective past, the one that takes place in a con call it a still pan shot, but then that's the magic of stant present on screens across this great land of painting. You can do that stuff, because inside the ours, measured in millimeter-widths. OK, again viewer is where the painting really exists. And the now, close your eyes. Imagine the American land viewer can move, at that. Create your own pan! Be scape. Wait, wait, it's coming into view. It's about a movie camera! Sweep across the vista of the twenty-six feet long, blurred a bit, some trees, a American landscape! But the American landscape is cloudy sunset... too big, far too big to get any kind of handle on. It's Maybe NBC should string a Skycam from like trying to sink your teeth into a steak made from the Florida keys to Tijuana, up to Puget Sound and Babe the Blue Ox's hinder. So the American land across to Maine's tip, and let that thing fly! Let it scape becomes whatever you can hold in your sweep around and around, its own 24-hour chan head—an image. nel, in endless Pan-a-Vision®, blending image after Ruscha's paintings are backdrops, inert, image into one big pool, flying through space, out awaiting the images of cinematic memory projected to brush the stars. Directed by Ed Ruscha, at a the onto them by our minds' eyes. And his words, float ater near you. ing on the surface of the paintings, are not language "Spaghetti Westerns", Ed Ruscha's exhibi but triggers; symbols in endless receivership, contin tion of paintings, will be shown at the Milwaukee Art ually accepting shifting meaning, hopping like a fly Museum from March 7 through May 4, 1997. The from wall to wall, listening in, giving form to inertia. artist will present his short film Miracles (1975), Forget meaning. Think media-tags "O.J.", "Bill starring Michelle Philips, March 6 at 6:15p.m. Gates", "Ebonics"; a land where metonymy replaces autonomy. Nicholas Frank resides in Milwaukee, where he eschews movie-going for televised NBA games. He pre dicts the Bulls take the Lakers in five. Six, tops. Edward Ruscha Soapy Smith, 1993 acrylic on canvas board I"-.'-:". ...''.'-'"'"'.": - 18 Art Muscle her project. Furthermore, although the press Majoli body fragments may be the most straightforward in has received has been overwhelmingly positive, it this regard. The life-size detail of a woman's neck in has also been narrow in scope. Previous articles isolation is both inviting and exposed. The close have focused on her socio/political position as a cropping of the scene allows the painting to func young lesbian. She has been championed as a tal tion as a portrait of those personal spaces only our ented voice in feminist and homosexual circles with closest companions can know, while the extreme her depiction of gay desire becoming a vehicle for detail lends vulnerability alluding to the risk that social protest and identity affirmation. While the accompanies intimacy. A recent self-portrait depicts accolades are well deserved, such praise also con the artist on a bed using two dildos. The painstak tributes to a marginalization of her work: to attend ing detail in which the silky sheets, the quality of solely to the aspects of her work that are transgres- light thrown onto the wall by a lamp and the pattern sive makes for sexy criticism. Just as the press can of an oriental rug are rendered, complicate what concoct stories of emergent art scenes from well some writers have deemed a straightforward depic established communities, critics armed with political tion of self-reliance. With the artist attempting to agendas can mute work that is universal in concern. substitute two objects for a lover, Majoli's portrait is The strength of Majoli's work is not the nar a metaphor for the paradox of individually attempt rative exploration of identity and sexuality that has ing to satisfy one's desire for companionship and been the focus of previous articles. To solely estab love. Rather than as a triumphant individual, the lish a narrative does not require the intricate detail artist is depicted struggling alone. Majoli's work Majoli employs nor the time she devotes. Her work appeals broadly by successfully exploring universal moves quickly beyond glib political pronounce themes of companionship and intimacy. By placing ments towards an examination of the complicated specific sexual iconography into contexts that intersection of intimacy and pleasure we all experi address common concerns, Majoli evokes strong The Salad Years? ence in our loving relationships. The paintings of recognition in all who view her work. by Rena Conti and Ivan Moskowitz Rena Conti and Ivan Moskowitz live in Madison. Over the last several years there have been many articles in the national art press hailing the resur gence of the LA. art scene. Most have highlighted the opening of the Gagosian and Pace in Beverly Hills, the alliance at Bergamot Station, and the chal lenging programs established at a number of young galleries. However while there may be more finan cially solvent galleries of late, LA's artists have been producing great art consistently for years. LA is home to several of the most influential artists of the present period including Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, John Baldessari and Charles Ray. Much of the strength of the current Los Angeles art commu nity is derived from the work of these and other well respected artists working as faculty at UCLA Otis, Art Center, and CalArts. It is no wonder that tal ented young artists are attracted to the community. This trend has not been lost on alert gallerists; among the recent LA. art school graduates that have been granted shows in strong New York Galleries or spreads in Art Forum are Toba Kedorri, Martin Kersels, Sharon Lockhart, Catherine Opie, Laura Owens, Jennifer Pastor and Jason Rhodes. As these young artists mature and join the community as their mentors have previously, perhaps the art world and media will recognize that LA. is a con tinuous source of artistic talent. To speak of a recent resurgence is to ignore the consistent achievement of LA.'s artists and accept the vigor of the gallery scene as a measure of artistic strength. We believe Monica Majoli is one of the most promising young artists currently working in LA. Majoli's oeuvre to date consists of small scale oils on panels that depict isolated body parts, men in bath houses or group sex scenes, women making love, and self-portraits. The works are painted in a medi tative style with detail alluding to C. Fabritius and Vermeer. While painting full time, Majoli produces Monica Majoli about one painting a year. This fact alone may make Untitled, 1993-95 it difficult for the art world to become familiar with oil on panel Martin Kersels Monkey Pod, 1993 dimensions variable Art Muscle 19 We Try Harder A Discussion Between David Pagel and Peter Doroshenko PD: What drew you to LA? How has it become the most interesting art scene in the country? DP: I was in graduate school, working on my art his tory degree, and I realized that Harvard was just a professional training center for historians. I was much more interested in art than in history, and writing specifically. If I was going to write about art Anonymous I had to be in either New York or LA. Comparing UWM Art Museum the two cities then, I felt I would have more oppor circa 1977 tunities in LA. because there were fewer critics here at the time. My original plan was to move to the West Coast for two or three years and then move to New York—I'm still here. And that's because of the York, there really isn't a scene or much excitement. good publications and interesting art production It reminds me of the Internet—much media hype, DP: Well, part of that infighting is because LA. is and exhibitions that we have. I've always thought yet bogged down and boring. Just how different is becoming a mature art city—more like New York. that New York was the place to be, but since mov it in L.A.? ing here, I believe that LA. takes that crown. It's PD: And like New York, the LA. based publications more active and amusing to be an artist or critic here DP: It's very clear that there isn't one art world. are creating an international dialogue. than elsewhere. Everything centers around small areas of activity— studios, schools, galleries and museums. An exam DP: It's my opinion that some of the best emerging PD: And for the young artists? ple of this could be that the really hip scene hangs artists come from LA. While New York may argue around galleries such as Acme, Mark Foxx and against that theory, no one will argue against the DP: It's much easier for younger artists to work Richard Telles. A whole other crowd assembles fact that the best writing is now centered in LA. themselves into the art scene in LA. and to get around LA Louver gallery. It is a very fragmented From the regional newspapers to the international shows. Because the city is so spread out, you can scene that stems from the city sprawl and the lack of magazines, this writing has become an important keep to yourself and produce a lot of work, which institutional history. The Museum of Contemporary factor for discussion and critical thought. This cer is a good thing. In comparison, New York has too Art recently celebrated its ten year anniversary and tainly strengthens the community by giving it an many distractions. Trying to get someone to look at the LA County Museum has only, over the last five edge. your work in New York, much less exhibit it, is like years, become more serious about its role concern playing the lottery. ing contemporary art. PD: That is an important link which is missing in many urban areas. PD: Could it also be the advanced art departments PD: New York has the Museum of Modern Art and and schools in LA lend themselves to building the lineage of modernism with which to contend. DP: If you are not living in LA. or New York, you foundations for an active art scene? Everyone is battling to invent or re-invent certain need to know not only what is happening in your aspects for the history books. own community, but also what is happening nation DP: It's true that LA. has some of the best art ally and internationally. It does take work to accom schools in the country—a cluster of strong pro DP. Exactly. Here we don't fight over history plish that and you really have to try harder. grams, excellent faculties and great teaching envi ronments. I think that the fact that active and recog nized artists teach here, that this is part of the every day process, is a rarity in New York. It's also impor tant to note that after graduating most students stay in the LA. area. PD: The Mike Kelley model? DP: Yes, he was one of the first artists that didn't have to move to New York. Yet, he did have to get New York's validation in order for curators and col lectors to take him seriously in LA. Now, the current generation of young artists dismisses that as an out dated model and feels that they can stay put and be on top of things. PD: After visiting various artist's studios in New Jim isserman installation view because there isn't any deep history to fight over. PD: Like the car rental company. Sometimes being PD: Well, are the galleries fulfilling their roles? number two is better. DP: There is much good art work being made now David Pagel is a critic and curator living in Los and many artists aren't compelled to exhibit their Angeles. He contributes regularly to the Los work to large audiences or through the traditional Angeles Times, Art Issues, Art + Text, frieze, and formats. Unlike the 80's, when many artists would Trans. He teaches at the University of Nevada have killed to get a large gallery or museum show, Las Vegas and is also the new Adjunct Curator at today's scene is moving underground. Many artists the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Art are keeping their work isolated. They celebrate it in Museum. smaller circles and could care less if a gallery direc tor, museum curator or critic is interested in their Peter Doroshenko contributes regularly to the work. This is the downside to the fragmentation of Journal of Contemporary Art and Museo maga the LA. scene. zine. He is Director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Art Museum. PD: Is there more art world infighting in LA. now? 20 Art Muscle Canada on a Cocktail Napkin: A Conversation with Kim Dingle, Drawn from Memory by David Hullfish Bailey / might've given it to you straight, verbatim, but the batteries weren't working and Denny's archi tects do not spec outlets in each booth. While I'm under the table checking this out, Kim Dingle says, "It's just as well, Dave Bailey; I wouldn't talk if tape were running," and "Maybe you should order something." DB: A lot of the writing around your work con DB: Hudson Bay there and Alaska on an angle, but KD: That's where I have some leverage on him, a structs it as a primarily critical machine itself, posi the rest kind of breaks up near the top... place where I can maybe pry back the weight of tions you as some kind of cultural sharpshooter... "LINCOLN" long enough to have an actual relation KD: You can't just make dots—I've got to cut this ship with him. KD: "Deconstructing democracy"—that kind of out with scissors. You've got to make some com take? mitments. DB: "Actual"...? DB: Yeah, but not the single gun theory: add to DB: This is where your two ways of working come KD: To even get to where you can discuss some that "puncturing the American myth of childhood together for me—they're both about making mani thing like historical legacy you've already engaged a innocence" and "debunking the received canons of fest an idiosyncratic version of some word, idea, or whole further series of abstractions. They're neces patriarchal history," and "invading the male space of icon. You or someone else fessing up to their sary for certain discussions—criticism, for example, painting," etc. Several rooftops and several targets. investments. or this conversation—but they do a kind of vio Kind of a blood bath, actually. lence: conflate details, lump individuals, the cate KD: There's always a gap between how you have gories become more important than the things KD: I'm not interested in criticizing anything. it in your head and how you put it on paper, but the they're supposed to represent, take on a life of their Things—political figures, pop culture, art historical point is that you have it in your head in a specific own. I prefer to stay specific whenever I can. references, etc.—turn up in my work simply way—you have a vision of that public thing that is because that's what I'm surrounded by every day. particular and concrete. I mean it's concrete in par DB: Maybe the politics of the work lie more in your I'm very visual, and I'm influenced by everything. ticular ways and equally specific in the ways and proposal of these other logic systems, in its refusal But to encounter something, to be influenced by it, places it's abstract—I asked a homeless man in to generalize, rather than in any of the putative and to then try to make sense of it does not equate town to draw me the United States and he just drew morality tales or critical positions associated with it. with "criticizing" it. a circle with an X in the middle for LA. KD: Those are the projections of whoever's telling DB: The relation seems synthetic, this other system DB: The argument about Hollywood as contribut them. Those come out of the tapes running in their of "making sense" in your work, a version of map- ing to a kind of monoculture, plopping down the heads, what they're already thinking about. making. A navigational strategy among disparate same icons and narratives everywhere, Disney in terms. China—your work seems to run the other way, DB: What's curious is that you've got Bosnia, toward a fraying of the symbolic and a proliferation Rwanda and South Central LA. on one hand and KD: I work in two ways, by what you'd maybe call of what any given icon might mean. your work on the other, rife with both multi-racial "flashes" and by systems. By "flash" I don't mean a characters and non-racial violence, but the tape I've bolt out of the blue, but it just comes together fast— never heard is the Utopian one. This in a city with a basically I will an image to emerge from the reser long tradition of proposals for alternative communi voir of things I've seen and think about. A big paint ties, from the Socialist colonies of the teens right up ing can be start-to-finish in a couple of hours. to Dianetics. Would it be going too far to construe When I'm not "on" that way, that's when I work the epistemological architecture of your work as from systems—the paintings done from want-ad some kind of post-Rodney-King Schindler House, a descriptions, asking people for maps from memory. social proposal with tangible implications for how Here, try Canada. to get along? Kim Dingle Priss, 1995 installation view KD: If by "mean" you mean the relationship it's possible to have with something—a historical figure or my mother, let's say—or what relationship two or more such things might have to each other, then yes, my connections tend to lie outside established party lines. Kim Dingle Girl on Panda from Prisspapers, 1994 oil on wallpaper DB: Your construals seem structured by details and visual synapses, rather than built upon the broader codings of discourse. I'm talking about approach KD: I can't say I think about it in those terms. But ing Lincoln through his long legs rather through his if the discussion has to go somewhere, I'd be at least historical legacy. as interested in seeing it going in that direction as where it's already gone. David Hullfish Bailey is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. Art Muscle 21 Veneer Plywood by Brad Killam According to his answering machine, Jorge Pardo is rarely at home. He may be out of town installing his next exhibition, running errands, conducting research in a library, meeting a vendor, or just screening his calls. For better or worse he owns a reputation of being hard-to-get-a-hold-of. That absenteeism contradicts what we might come to expect from a guy whose practice, like that of an interior designer, focuses on domestic accou trements and experiences. We might expect him to be home. Pardo is in the process of building a new residence where his Code-A-Phone could possibly hold sway. He plans to decorate it initially with bor rowed modern treasures from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and run a tour bus from the museum up to the house. The house- warming is scheduled for sometime in the spring of 1997. This monumental project serves as a logical follow up to his endless reworking of interior design. From subtly re-configuring late 60s and early 70s style second-hand lamps to reproducing the cabinets found in his rented house to planning his new Southern California property, the artist has built a grand staircase of challenging problems and solutions all under the umbrella of art. His exhibi tions have evolved from a concentration on the refined object (its retro-aesthetic appeal and func tion acting as a location for ideological browsing) to focusing on the connections between layered inci dents. Occurrences such as creating original and desirable objects, hunting down that perfect Barcelona Chair, living and entertaining among stunning amenities, working at an Ikea desk or per haps just taking a comfortable mid-day nap, all con tribute to modern design's position, for or against, the workings of the everyday. Thus, Pardo's pro gram requires modernist furnishings to act as props for contemplating and possibly acting out those sit uations. Inciting "home" as a location of experience brings with it several questions. The antagonistic relationship between home, domesticity and high modernism still looms unresolved. Can the inten tions of modernist form and ideology change or be re-interpreted to meet the requirements of comfort and function? Can a new agenda meet the needs of the residential masses? To see convincing change would involve the passing of the torch to individu als who are willing to let high modernism go for dis count warehouse prices. Unfortunately, refined sen sibilities and tastes come at a premium; so does a trendy and collectible Eames chair, mass produced by Hermen Miller. For all the well-meaning Charles Eames' in the world, high modernism has yet to establish a humble position in the household rituals of the proletariat. Jorge Pardo Halley'a Ikeya-Seki, Encke's 1996 wood, lacquer, glass If there's any consolation for modernism's resistance to accommodate the common herd, that comfort resides in memory. The furniture groupings Pardo creates urge us to remember home in the 60s and 70s; to recall the illusion of Utopia or more accurately the safe and carefree suburban after noons in front of the television and the "hi-fi". He quietly reminds us to remember the custom furni ture somebody in the family made; daring us to now regret watching that kidney-shaped coffee table get tossed in a garbage truck when we were fifteen and didn't know or care enough to possibly save it. Brad Killam lives in Milwaukee 22 Art Muscle GRANTS Milwaukee Arts Board Arts Midwest Applications and guidelines now available for 1997. Monies available for composers of contemporary City of Milwaukee 501(c)3 non-profit arts or neigh music. Info Arts Midwest, 528 Hennepin Ave., #310, A generous gesture came from a Milwaukee borhood organizations in existence for at least 2 Minneapolis, MS 55403- Foundation grant to the Milwaukee Art Museum. years are eligible. Deadline Feb 24. Info Milwaukee Payable over five years, the monies will used for Arts Board, 288-5796. Request these educational programs in the much talked about Application guidelines available for Wisconsin non Calatrava addition, now scheduled for a grand March 1 deadline profit institutions who promote art and education opening New Year's Eve, 1999. The Wisconsin Arts Up to $25,000 for artist with exceptional talent in projects. The Kohler Foundation, 104 Orchard Rd., Board and their Artist Fellowship Awards Program ceramic sculpture or sculpture. Info SASE Virginia A. Kohler,WI 53044. sent the following winners home with a cool $8,000 Groot Foundation, POB1050, Evanston, IL 60204. each: Fiction, Ellen Akins, Lisa Renee Chipongian, Gay A Lesbian Kelly Dwyer; Poetry, Anne-Marie Cusac, Jeri Feminists Grants to non-profit cultural organizations. McCormick, Dale Ritterbusch, Robert Schuler, Grants for feminists in the arts, U.S. or Canadian cit Ongoing. Info Chicago Resource Center, 104 S. Dennis Trudell; Choreography/Performance Art: Li izens. Info Money for Women, Box 40-1043, Michigan Ave., 10220, Chicago, IL 60603- Chio-Ping, Carol MarionjMusic Composition: Ken Brooklyn, NY 11240-1043. Schaphorst, Sigmund Snopek III. If you are a pro Reviewed quarterly fessional Wisconsin visual and/or media artist, the Guidelines & forms available at The Milwaukee next deadline for applications is September 15. Foundation, 1020 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI Contact The Wisconsin Arts Board, 101 E. Wilson 53202. St., 1st Floor, Madison, WI 53702. 608/266-0190. Arts Midwest California Gold Jazz Master, Performing Arts Touring, Artworks and Info sources: Mother Jones, 731 Market St., Suite Meet The Composer/Midwest funding now avail 600, San Francisco CA 94103..Aperture short film able. Deadlines vary. Info Arts Midwest, 528 grants. Info SASE Aperture, Inc., 12335 Santa Hennepin Ave., Suite 310, Minneapolis, Mn, 55403. Monica Blvd. Suite 174, Los Angeles, CA 90025... 612/341-0755. FX 612/341-0901. OPPORTUNITIES Chicago Seeking non-students and Illinois residents with The Monster's Progress, by California artist Jim Bareness. Opens Feb. 9, John Michael Kohler Arts work in all media. Deadline Mar. 31. Info VISUAL ARTS Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. McCormickPlace Art Competition, c/o Satori Fine Art, 230 W. Superior St., Chicago, IL 60610. No calls. The Pink Room FX 312/751-1974. Installation space at Art Muscle. $100 per month. California cinema Info 672-8485. Seeking quality cinema. Energy Productions, 12700 ArtCentric Ventura Blvd, 4th FI., Studio City, CA 91604. Seeking artists for ongoing exhibits. ArtCentric Auditions Gallery, 217 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202. Mar 1, 1-4 pm, Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theatre. Video installations, 19" monitor without sound. VHS Cast of seven men and women for The Triumph of with description, statement, bio, 9"xl2". SASE $2.90 Lesbian and gay Love. One classical monologue language oriented. postage to Ed de la Torre, LA Contemporary Seeking submissions for San Francisco International Appt. only. 672-6019. Exhibits, 6522 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Deadline Feb 10. Info 90028. Frameline, 346 9th St., San Francisco, CA 94103. Fx Electronic Art 415/861-1404. Tel. 415/703-8650. Calls for papers, presentations, exhibitions for Seeking film & video by & about Latinos for regular International Symposium on Electronic Art Sept 22- screening. Info Cine Accion, 346 9th St., San Spice of life 27 at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Francisco, CA 94103. Create a Havdalah Spice Container for 1998 http://www/artic/edu/~isea97. Or call/fax 312/541- International Biennial Judaica event Deadline Dec 8078. email: [email protected] Models needed 30, 1997. Info Spertus Museum, Competition Males and females for fashion show extravaganza to Prospectus, 618 W Michigan Av., Chicago, IL60605. League of Milwaukee Artists benefit the Milwaukee Aids Project. Info on perks: Jurying new members, Charles Allis Art Museum, Kathy 291-2856. Cash awards Apr 5, 9:30-10:30am. 3 framed works. No photogra Seeking female sculptors for Sculpture & Medallic phy. Info Rademan, 278-1397 or McAuliffe, 321- Go figure Art Exhibition in April. Deadline Mar 15. Info SASE 2716. Also seeking artists for June East Towne Seeking life drawing models, experienced pre Sculpture Section, Pen & Brush, 16 E. 10th St, New Square exhibit. Info Fricke 962-3903 or Pscheid, ferred, but not necessary. $10 per hr. for 3 hr. ses York, NY 10003- 453-6187. sions. Info Steven Bleicher, Marian College, Fond du Lac, WI. 414/923-8116. Show business Wisconsin Designer Craft Council Artists needed to exhibit work at local businesses & Seeking Wisconsin artists and student artists of $6 per session corporations. Slides or 3x5 photos to RAA Art designer crafts for 74th annual juried exhibition. Open figure drawing from nude models. Pre-regis- Represented, Art Center, 3178 N. Fratney St., Two slide deadline Feb 28. Info 351-1325 or 774- ter or pay at door of rooms G80/85, 3rd fl., Milwaukee, WI 53212. 4128. Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Tues eves, 7- 10pm. No session Mar 11. HS students bring signed Madison square Seeking artists release from parents. Info 291-3273- Applications available for Art Fair on the Square. All media for 26th annual Outdoor Arts Festival. Info Madison Art Center, 211 State St., Madison, WI Deadline for 5 slides, Apr 1. $60 fee for 10 x 10 Envision this 53703. 608/257-0158. space. Awards. Info John Michael Kohler Arts Culture & Agriculture exhibit seeking artists, all Center, POB 489, Sheboygan, WI 53082. 414/458- media, inspired by agriculture. Deadline Feb 13. MUSIC 6144. Also entries for Marshfield Art Fair. Info SASE New Visions, 1000 N. Oak Ave., Marshfield, WI 54449. Local talent Madison Seeking music as well as the spoken word for Seeking proposals for solo and/or group shows for Soho photo album to benefit Riverwest Artists Association pro Sept 1997-Dec 1998. Deadline Mar 28. Info Any photographic medium. National. Deadline Feb jects. No D.A.T. please. Deadline Mar 1. Tapes to Rothenberger, Memorial Union Galleries, Madison. 15. Prospectus Soho Photo Gallery, 15 White St., RAC, 3178 N. Fratney St., Milwaukee, WI 53212. 608/262-7592. Russo, 608/262-5969. New York, NY 10013. Music therapy All media Nlcolet national Group & private therapy using music to enhance Seeking artists for juried solo and group shows in Seeking 2-D entries for juried competition. Info well-being of people with disabilities. Info Larkin, 1997-98. Also installation space. Deadline Apr 30. SASE Nicolet College Art Department, POB 518, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, 276-5760. SASE prospectus Arc Gallery, 1040 W Huron, Rhinelander, WI 54501. Chicago, II 60622. 312/733-2787. WORDS Women of color UFO National organization supports women artists of Laughing Boy Seeking artists to create unique furniture and color. Newsletter & large-scale collaborative art pro Seeking poetry for Laughing Boy Review. SASE objects for a new shop in the Brady Street area. Info jects. Info Coast to Coast National Women Artists of Nikki Morawski, 910 Minnesota Ave., South Paige Heid, 271-7711. Color, POB 310961, Jamaica, NY 11431. Milwaukee, WI 53172. Art Muscle 23 NEW WORKS INTERIORS By 75 Gallery Artists Furniture iWHP APftAJ / FINE ART through Lighting Viiiin<|eA|ip;ircl-W;iterStreviAiiti SCULPTURE CERAMICS GALLERY FIBER 10050 N PORT WASHINGTON ROAD FURNITURE MEQUON, WISCONSIN 53092 414-241-7040 •1«;S. Water S1.«-.1A\OH.-S;I».,12-SSHH.-27!J-00« MAR 1 -APR 5 OPENING PARTY SAT MAR 1 8PM TODD TUTTLE recent hallucination s 820 e locust milwaukee wi ject room: Building Wisconsin's Flagship u : ;/ - An Official State Sesquicentennial Project BRETT 2 Use your muscle to help create the first Tall Ship being built in Wisconsin in over 100 years! n th fr sa 12-4 Wisconsin Lake Schooner Educatior Association \ BLOOM V^ A • A n < 50° N' Harbor Drive Milwaukee, WI 53202 u 414/276-7700 www.execpc.com/~schooner Mon. - Sat. 9:00a.m. - 5:00p.m. X palace an exhibition at two sites Beret International Gallery Walker* Point Center for the Arts Fefcusry 21 - March 29, 1397 February 21 - March 30,1997 opening party F9bruaiY2i, 7-10 pm opening party February 22,7-10 pm Laura Owene Rebecca Morris /'Micha#Plittza:v-:.- Paul McCarthy and Mike KeBey David mmm Baliey aivid ftobbln* VltoAcconci Mlchaei Butka 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave.- and floor 907 W. National Ave, Chicago, (L 60622 Milwaukee, Wl 53204 414672.27*7 Organized by MteheHe Grabner and Brad Klltam MAT CUTTING WITH DAVID LOGAN BASIC MATTING ADVANCED 2.5 HOUR HANDS 2 HOUR HANDS ON CLASS TEACHES YOU PROCESS 2 HOUR HANDS ON ON CLASS • LEARN SINGLE • DOUBLE & STEP TO CUT MULTIPLE CORNER MATS CLASS OF MEASURING • SIZING & TIPS ON OPENING MATS & FRI FEB 28 OVAL MATS 9AM TO 11:30 PRESENTATION FRIFEB 28 FRI FEB 28 OR 3:00 TO 5:00 SAT MAR 1 12:30 TO 2:30 OR 9AM TO 11:30 OR SAT MAR 1 SAT MAR 1 OR 3:00 TO 5:00 SUN MAR 2 12:30 TO 2:30 1:00 TO 3:30 4 5 AIRBRUSH CLASS 1 MAT CLASS S ** . _.„ $80.00 SAT MAR 15 or SUN MAR 16 2 AFFERENT MATRASSES $80.0^ 10:00 TO 5:00 « „OBBUSH 3 DIFFERENT MAT CLASSfcb »i $185.00 ^TAKEHOr ARTISTANDDISPLAY 9015 WEST BURLEIGH 442-9100 SINGE 1936 MWF 9-6 • TUES & THUR 9-8PM • SAT 9-5 • SUN 12-4 24 Art Muscle LET KAMA • SUTRA GUIDE YOU DILLMAN'S CREATIVE ART FOUNDATION Alexander and Radmfla Radicevich's SENSUAL cu PLEASURE PALETTE SHOP INC FOR BED & BATH 1325 E. Capitol Dr., Shore wood, Wl Established 1971 SERBIAN Sunday, February 23, 1997 GOURMET -«^ Noon-4:00 p.m. HOUSE SOAPS "A Delightful Experience" ©> Free Demonstrations e> Door Prizes for lunch or dinner e> Refreshments e> Art Auction (2 p.m.) Selected wines, liquors, and homemade desserts SCENTS Strolling string music \J^%i' 1325 East Capitol Drive 342 North Water Street Party rooms available MAYFAIR MALL p 1 Shorewood, Wl 53211 Milwaukee, Wl 53202 Gift certificates 771-2228 f M TEL: 414-963-1346 TEL: 414-272-3780 Credit cards accepted ™ Open Sundays Noon-4 p.m. In Wl: 1 -800-242-7245 DOWNER AVE PALETTE SHOP INC MdMJMMMIMMhbMMI 522 W. Lincoln Ave 962-6566 (414)672-0206 Art Muscle 25 OUT THERE Ballet to Present a Milwaukee Original From choreography to costumes, the Milwaukee Ballet1 s world premeiere in February of a contemporary take on the classic The Firebird is almost all home-made—made in Milwaukee, that is. Local choreographer and UW-Mikvaukee Associate Professor of Dance Ed Burgess combines his athletic and inventive style with Igor Stravinsky's revolutionary music in a more figurative than literal re-telling of the classic Russian fairy tale. This Firebird, which Burgess has said is "a journey toward ihe light in oneself,'' will be costumed by Pamela J. Rehberg Arts Organizations: Gallery of Wisconsin Art, Ltd, 931 E Ogden; and include scenery designed by Sandra J. Shown, both Associate Professors in UWM's Please add Art Musde to 278-8088; Ongoing: Gallery Artists Professional Theater Training Program. Scenery and costumes will be built by the Ballet's your mailing lists production and costume departments. The colorful program, running from February 6 Gallery 110 North, Mill & North, Plymouth; through 9 in Uihlein Hall at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, also includes 901 W National Avenue 893-5242; Now-Feb 23: A Basket Is Milwaukee Ballet company premieres centering on the music of Bach. David Parson's Milwaukee, Wl 53204 Bachiana is set on Bach's Air on the G String, and is as light and uninhibited as the tide Attn: Megan Powell Grava Gallery, 1209 E Brady; 277-8228; suggests. And Kathryn Posin combines the music of Bach and performance artist Laurie 414/672-8485 Now-Feb 28: Milwaukee Prinimakers Anderson in the appetizing Bach's Lunch. Call 643-7677 for details. Please submit calendar listings for April/May Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette Univer in writing on or before March 10, 1997. sity, 13th & Clybourn; Now-Mar 30: UWM Art History Gallery, Mitchell Hall, 3203 Milwaukee Ballet, Marcus Center for the Per Include starting and ending dates, location & DanceFindings: Robert Ellis Dunn Videodance N Downer; 229-5070; Now-Feb 17: Timothy forming Arts: Uihlein Hall, 929 N Water; 273- phone number. Unless otherwise stated, all Installation; Feb 7-Apr 6: Sorafi Bachrodt: O'Sullivan Prints 7206; Feb 6-9: The Firebird phone numbers are area code 414. For spe Recent Paintings cific information on events, please call listings UWM Art Museum, 3253 N Downer; 229- in advance. Hermetic Gallery, 820 E Locust; 264-1063; 5070; Now-Mar 2: Truman Lowe & Joseph Havel Marl-Apr 5: Todd Tu«/e UWM Fine Arts Gallery, 2400 E Kenwood; Instinct, 725 N Milwaukee; 276-6363; Now- 229-4946; Now-Feb 10: Coniempo '97; Feb events Mar 14: Texas Tornadoes 23-Mar 2: Scholarship Exhibit John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 608 New Volenti Art & Design, 1223 N Prospect; 774- Milwaukee Art Museum, 750 N Lincoln Me Alverno College Art & Cultures Gallery, 3401 York Avenue, Sheboygan; 458-6144; Now- 4361; Now-Mar 1: Thin Ice/Glass Houses Show morial; 224-3200; Feb 9 & 16: Family Sun S 39th; 382-6149; Feb 2-Apr 25: Nancy Feb 2: Rudy Rotter: Mahogany to Mink; Now- days Craw: Improvisational Quilts May 11: In Memory of Pleasure, A Contempo Walker's Point Center for the Arts, 911 W rary Painting Exhibition; Feb 9-Apr 27: Jim National; 672-2787; Now-Feb 16: Members Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, 273 E Anderson ArtCenler, 121 -66th, Kenosha; 653- Barsness: Icons of Comic Relief; Kiss of Life, Kiss Show, Feb 21-Mar 31: Michelle Grabner & Erie; 291 -3273; Mar 8: Business of Art Satur 0481; Now-Mar 2: Racine Art Guild; Group of Death, Installation by Eunice Kambara Brad Killam, Palace day Workshop: Tax & Record Keeping for Show; Southport School Artists Katie Gingrass Gallery, 241 N Broadway; West Bend Art Museum, 300 S 6th, West Bend; ArK^rtrkGdk^,217NBroadway;220-9660;Now- 289-0855; Now-Mar 14: Vista, Vessels & Ver 334-9638; Now-Feb 23: Buildings & Land Feb 28: The Body, Mar 3-Apr 11: CfT,me & Place digris; David Marsh; Cam Croninger, Jewelry scapes; Now-Mar 2: A/C Art Association - Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 W Well; 278- West Allis; Mar 1 -Apr 13: Kimonos: The Ex 2700; Feb 1 -23: Black Heritage Month - Cel Art Elements Gallery, 10050 N Pt Washing Lake Shore Gallery, 4401 N Oakland; 964- pression of Inner Harmony, Mar 8-Apr 13: ebration of Culture ton; 241-7040; Now-Feb 28: Gallery Artists; 2540; Now-Feb 7: Original Masks from The Inspiration & Context The Work ofAlbertPaley Mar 8-Apr 30: Interiors atre X/Wild Space Mardi Gras Mask Ball Artspace, 725 G Woodlake, Kohler; 452- Latino Arts Gallery at the United Community 8602; Now-Mar 23: fie/ween Rivers & Valleys, Center, 1028 S 9th; 384-3100; Now-Apr 23: Exhibition by Fred HC Liang Latina Women's Art Exhibition Bay View Gallery, 3046 S Delaware; 744- League of Milwaukee Artists, Maple Dale 6858; Now-Mar 1: Impressions of Self: Chi School, 8377 N Pt Washington; Feb 1-28: merical Self-PortraiH by Wisconsin Artists Members' Paintings Charles Allis Art Museum, 1801 N Prospect; Leenhouts Gallery, 1342 N Astor; 273-5257; 278-8295; Feb 2-23: Treasures from the Allis Now-Mar 14: The Collages of Jim Klingbeil; Vault & Recent Gifts to me Great Hall; Mar 2- Christian Becker, Photography 29: John W Clark: The Art of Picture-Making OUT THERE Plains Indian Pages On View at Milwaukee Art Museum Using what was once intended for the business of taking over and removing them from their lands, the Plains Indian tribes of the the late 19th- and early 20th-cenhiries documented histories, both personal and tribal, on large, bound ledger books acquired through trade with or plunder of white soldiers. A landmark exhibition of these ledger paper drawings by artists of the Lakota, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Arapaho tribes is making a stop at the Milwau kee Art Museum through March 30. Plains Indian Drawings, 1865-1935: Pages from a Visual History contains more than 150 drawings by 36 artists in single-sheet and complete book formats, some seldom seen outside of private and archival collections. Tracing the evolution of Plains Indian art from simple hide painting to more detailed paper drawings with pencil, crayon and watercolor obtained from white explorers, traders, and soldiers, the exhibition also depicts the influence of European artistic movements and the new medium of photography on the artists' simple, delicate and semi-abstract style. Individually, the works act as more than merely a chronicle of specific events, speaking of the simple and powerful need of Native Americans to record and remember their lives. Call 224-3200 for details. Charles A Wushim Museum of Fine Arts, 2519 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 700 N Northwestern, Racine; 636-9177; Now-Feb 12th, Wausau; 715/845-7010; Now-Mar 2: 16: V7ew from Southeast Wisconsin; Berta Art from the Driver's Seat Sherwood Milwaukee Art Museum, 750 N Lincoln Me David Barnett Gallery, 1024 E State; 271- morial; 224-3200; Now-Feb 22: 1997 Scho 5058; Feb 1 -28: Picasso Ceramics; Marl -29: lastic Art Exhibition; Now-Mar 2: Technology Renee McGinnis Paintings in Design: 1700-Present; Now-Mar 30: Plains Indian Drawings, 1865-1935; Now-Apr 6: Dean Jensen Gallery, 165 N Broadway; 278- Contemporary Women Prinimakers; Feb 7- 7100; Now-Mar 1: Black Songs: Works on May 11: Another History of Photography, Mar Rebel Hero, Rand/ James serigraph, Grava Gallery Paper by Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, 7-May 4: Currents 26: Ed Ruscha; Mar 21 -Jun Jacob Lawrence 15: Wisconsin Art Since 1990: Selections from Pfister Hotel, 424 E Wisconsin; 225-1549; the Permanent Collection Mar 22: 11th Annual Make a Promise Dinner Eden, 789 N Jefferson; 291-9314; Ongoing: & Auction Group Exhibits Mink Studio, 2406A N Murray; 964-8083; dance Ongoing : The Sod Secret Life of My Horse Theatre X & Wild Space Dance Company, Frederick Layton Honor Gallery, Cardinal Trigger, Christiane Ferrera & Eriks Johnson Italian Community Center, 631 E Chicago; Stritch College, 6801 N Yates; 352-5400; EtToi, Tu Danses?, Helfaer Theatre, Marquette 278-0555; Feb 8: J 997Mardi Gras Mask Ball Now-Feb 27: Artists Challenged: Books byAt- Neo-Post-Now Gallery, 7} 9 York, Manitowoc; University, 525 N13th; 964-6700; Mar 8 & 9: Risk Children 682-0337; Now-Apr 30: Pretty Flowers: Works Rain Forest Legend, Rituals, Gershwin Pre on Canvas Board ludes, Don Quixote Galerie Art Today, 218 N Water; 278-1211 ; Now-Mar 15: Contemporary European Art: Piano Gallery, 219 N Milwaukee; 276-3525; Foothold Dance Performance, Ivory Hall, Lin Franta & Belleudy, Gersina Now-Apr 6: Ann Mary Wydeven; Lori A coln Middle School for the Arts, 820 E Knapp; lectures Bauman 374-1458; Feb 6 & 7: Riding By Floating Galleria Del Conte, 1226 N Astor; 276-7545; Now-Feb 28: Shadow & Substance; Mar 7-Apr Studio 613, 3055 N Brookfield; 780-0613; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 608 New Milwaukee Art Museum , 750 N Lincoln Me 18: Living Forms Feb 1 -Mar 30: John Wilier, New Works; Kenn York Avenue, Sheboygan; 458-6144; Mar 21: morial; 224-3200; Feb 4: Gallery Talk: Plains Kwint, "Marks" Series Rk^usPerlom>ance:AnEveningofSoks&Duets Indian Drawings; Feb 13: Copley, Eakins & The Gallery, Ltd, 1030 E Juneau; 272-1611 ; American Portraiture; Feb 18: Gallery Talk: Ongoing: Original Works of Art Tory Folliard Gallery, 233 N Milwaukee; 273- Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Uihlein Contemporary Women Prinimakers 731 l;Feb9-Mar 7: Anne Miolke;MikeNoland; Hall, 929 N Water; 273-7206; Feb 18: Gallery H,0,221 N Water; 271 -8032; Feb 7- Mar 16-Apr 11: Nancy Ekholm Burkeit Paint Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Mar 1: Frozen Music: The Art of Architecture ings & Drawings 26 Art Muscle OUT THERE M»ViaukBeTHibkTnBalre;Avalonlhealre,2473 PST Festival is Back Again...And Again S Kinnickinnic; 769-6226; Mar 10-21: Babble How's this for karma? In February, the Playwrights Studio Theater's annual Festival of Ten- Milwaukee Repertory Theater, 108 E Wells; tftf* Minute plays features a play about Tennesee Williams called Eddie and the Bird, written by 224-9490; Powerhouse Theater: Now-Feb Playwrights' Artistic Director Michael Neville and starring Theatre X's Artistic Director John 16:TfieTavem;Feb21-Mar23:7fieMai;Mar Schneider and actor Jonathan Wainwright, who isn't an Artistic Director, but might as well 28-Apr 27: Woman in Mind; Stiemke The ART be, as far as this lead-in is concerned. Anyway, later in February, Theatre X opens Tennesee ater: Mar 2-23: GoodnightDesdemona(Good Williams' play Yieux Carre, which will be directed by John Schneider (Theatre X's A.D.) and Morning Juliet) Aldo Castillo Gallery, 233 W Huron; 312/337- starring Michael Neville (who leads PST] and actor Jonathan Wainwright, who isn't an...well, 2536; Now-Feb 15: Show Kawakita you get the idea-don't you? And, in addition to this tantalizing, karmic situation, the 1997 Next Act Theatre, Stiemke Theater, 108 E Festival is actually two festivals. Want to relive 1996? You can on February 1,13, and 15 Wells; 278-7780; Mar 6-23: Three Viewings Aran Packer Gallery, 1579 N Milwaukee; 312/ when PST presents last year's ten-minute play selections at the Stiemke Theater, 108 E. Wells. 862-5040; Now-Feb 8: Joe "40,000" Murphy Looking toward to getting on with 1997? See the 6th annual edition of ten-minute plays on Northern Stage Company, UWM Fine Arts February 6-8 and 14 and 16. Confused? Don't be—there is some straight info to be had, Theatre, 2200 E Kenwood; 229-4308; Feb Artemisia Gallery, 700 N Carpenter; 312/226- including the six local playwrights featured in this (and last...?) year's production: James 20-Mar 2: A Murder of Crows 7323; Now-Feb 22: Gallery Artists DeVita, Wayne Frank, John Leicht, Marvin Berkowitz, Howard Goldstein and the aforemen tioned Michael Neville. For the rest of the skinny, call PST at 573-4674. Special thanks to Playwrights Studio Theater, Stiemke Theater, Art Institute of Chicago, Michigan at Adams; Mr. Neville for insight into the cosmic proportions of this always enjoyable theatre treat. 108 E Wells; 224-9490; Now-Feb 15: 5m 312/443-3626; Feb 12-June 22: Rooted in Annual Festival of Ten-Minute Plays; Feb 6- Chicago: Textile Design Traditions; Feb 20-May 16: 6m Annual Festival of Ten-Minute Plays 11: Ivan Albright, Mar 29-June 22: Charles Rennie Mackintosh literature Milwaukee Art Museum, 750 N Lincoln Me Skylight Opera Theatre, Broadway Theatre morial; 224-3200; Feb 4 & 18, Mar 4 & 18: Center, 158 N Broadway; 291 -7800; Now- Chkago Cultural Center, 77 E Randolph; 312/ Music in me Museum Feb 9: Cosi Fan Tutte; Mar 19-Apr 6: Wings 744-6630; Now-Feb 23: Outsider Art: An Ex Audubon Court Books, 383 W Brown Deer Rd; ploration of Chicago Collections 351-9140; Feb 6 & Mar 6: Espresso Poetry, Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, St John's Sunset Playhouse, 800 Elm Grove Road; Feb 1: Elaine Bergstrom; Feb 11: Florentine Cathedral, 802 N Jackson; 286-8533; Mar 6: 782-4430; Feb 28-Mar 16: Playing Doctor Contemporary Art Workshop, 542 W Grant; Opera; Feb 12: Cathie Reuter; Feb 15: Dennis Music for King, Philosopher & Church 312/472-4004; Now-Feb 25: Bill Moron, Nolo Trudell; Feb 20: Sen Bill Bradley Theatre X, Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N Romano; Feb 28- Aprl :DanAddinglon,BruceRiley Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Marcus Broadway; 278-0555; Feb20-Mar 23: VieuxCorre Cafe Melange, 720 Old World Third; 291- Center for the Performing Arts: Uihlein Hall, Ehlers CaudillGallery Ltd, 750 N Orleans; 312/ 9889; Mondays: Poet's Monday unless otherwise noted; 273-7206; Now-Feb UWM Professional Theatre Training Pro 642-8611; Now-Mar 29: Midwest Landscapes; 2: Pops: Doc Around the World; Feb 5: Classi gram, UWM Fine Arts Theatre, 2400 E Flor Garduno Lava Java, 722 E Burleigh; 265-JAVA; Satur cal Conversations, Pabst Theater, 144 E Wells; Kenwood Blvd; 229-4308; Feb 6-28, in days: Next Saturdays Feb 14-16: Classics: Midori!; Feb 21 -23: Clas rotating repertory: All My Sons; In the Heart Gallery 1633,1633 N Damen; 312/384-4441 ; of America sics: Emperor & Titan; Mar 7-9: Pops: Bobby Now-Mar 1: Paul Mandracchia Schwartz Bookshops Writers to Readers Se McFerrin; Mar 14-16: Classics: Song of the ries, 270-3434; 4093 N Oakland: Feb 5: Will Rainforest; Mar 27-29: Classics: Andreas Delfs, Fellows; Feb 20: Sen Bill Bradley, 17145 W Conductor il Bluemound: Feb 1: Amy Dacyczyn; Feb 4: Todd Davison; Feb 11: Ron Hansen; Feb 13: Old Town Serbian Gourmet House, 522 W Jack Weamerford; 10976 N Pt Washington: Lincoln; 672-0206; Fridays-Sundays: Strolling Feb 24: Joanna Trollope String Minstrels Woodland Pattern Book Center, 720 E Locust; Present Music, Broadway Theatre Center, 158 .ftlilfc SllB 263-5001; Feb 8: Kenny Fries N Broadway; 271 -0711; Mar 22: Premieres Galore Mi Y-Not II, 706 E Lyon; 347-9972; 2nd & 4th ;.•#?& tits Wednesdays: Poetry Slam Skylight Opera Theatre Music Series, Broad •1 way Theatre Center, 158 N Broadway; 291 - 7800; Feb 1, 7, 8: Cowboy Cabaret Unitarian Church West, 13001 WNorth; 782- 3535; Mar 15: Patty Stevenson ,:iyiliai* UWM Fine Arts Recital Hall, 2400 E Kenwood; Alverno Presents, Pitman Theatre, 3401 S 229-4308; Feb 7,9 & 13, Mar 9: Music From 39th, unless otherwise noted; 382-6044; Feb Almost Yesterday, Feb 8: Lipatti Quartet, Feb 9: 14: Sounds of Blackness, Pabst Theater, 144 E Fine Arts Quartet, Feb 21 & 28: Music Convo Wells; Mar 14: Momix cation; Feb 23: Piano Chamber Concert Artist Series at the Pabst, Pabst Theater, 144 E Waukesha Symphony Orchestra, Shattuck Wells, unless otherwise noted; 286-8777; Feb Auditorium, Carroll College, 100 N East, 4: Vienna Chamber Orchestra; Feb 9: Tito Waukesha; 547-1858; Feb 16: Winter Con Puente, Congregation Emanu-El Bn'e Jeshurun, cert; Mar 25: Youth Invitational Concert 2419 E Kenwood; Feb 15: McCoy Tyner Trio w/Bobby Hukherson; Mar 8: Claire Bloom, Wisconsin Conservatory of Musk, 1584 N Eugenia Zukerman, Brian Zeger, Mar 15: Ni Prospect; 276-5760; Feb 2: Jazz Combo; Feb "KA: cholas Payton Quintet & Jacky Terrasson Trio; 9: Ce//o & Piano Solos; Mar 2: Kathleen Mar 18: Emerson Siring Quarlet Sonnetag; Mar 9: Violin & String Bass Solos; Mar 23: Classical Guitar Audubon Court Books, 383 W Brown Deer Rd; 351 -9140; Fri & Sat. Live Jazz Cafe Melange, 720 Old World 3rd; 291- ill A 9889; Tuesdays: Sheila & David Musical Re theater vue; Thursdays: La Chazz; 2nd & 4th Satur days: John Schneider Orchestra; Mar 1 & 15: WSUSSSsP"' Jerry Grillo Andre Lee Ellis & Company, Marcus Center for Cardinal Snitch College, 6801 Yates; 352- the Performing Arts, Vogel Hall; 273-7206; > 5400 x240; Feb 9: Mardi Gras Jazz Festival Feb 7-9: Step on a Crack, Break Yo Mama's Back 40,0O)Mirpn/wi)nJbyneAfans(et/, 1956, Aran PaaW Gallery Charles Allis Art Museum, 1801 N Prospect; 357-8681; Feb 16, Mar 2,9: Milwaukee Musk Boulevard Ensemble, 2252 S Kinnickinnic; In'hiit, 1926 N Halsted; 312/929-7122; Now- Teachers Association Youth Concert Series 672-6019; Feb 14-Mar 9: Heartbreak Hotels Mar 15: The Art of James Castle City Grille, 1694 N Van Buren; 273-2489; Cafe Melange; 720 Old World 3rd; 291 -9889; Judy A Saslow Gallery, 300 W Superior Suite Fridays: Jerry Grillo 2nd & 4lh Sundays: Hotel Milwaukee Taping 103; 312/943-0530; Now-Feb 15: Self Taught Impressionist Maurice Sullins; Feb 28-Mar 29: The Coffeehouse, 631 N 19th; 744-3655; Fri First Stage Milwaukee, Marcus Center for the Signs & Symbols & Sat Folk Music, Poetry, Open Stage Performing Arts: Todd Wehr Theatre; 273- 7206; Now-Feb 2: To Kill A Mockingbird; Feb Klein Art Works, 400 N Morgan; 312/243- Early Musk Now, Humphrey Scottish Rite 21 -Mar 16: Alice Through the Looking Glass 0400; Now-Feb 15: Steven Heyman Masonic Center, 790 N Van Buren; 225-3113; Feb 22: Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet John Mkhael Kohler Arts Center, 608 New Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E Chicago; York Avenue, Sheboygan; 458-6144; Febl 2& 312/280-2660; Now-Mar 23: Art in Chicago, Festival City Symphony, Pabst Theater, 144 E 15: Celeste Miller: Nurse Moms & Burning Lake ART 1945-1995; Time Arts Chicago; Now-Apr 6: Wells; 963-9067; Feb 23: Expanded Hori Inigo Manglano-Ovalle: Balsero; Now-Apr 13: zons; Mar 23: Potpourri The Latino Arts Theater at the United Commu Ervehjem Museum of Art, UW-Madison, 800 Jorge Pardo; Now-May 25: In the Shadow of nity Center, 1028 S 9th; 384-3100; Mar 7: University; 608/263-8188; Now-Mar 9: Storms: Art of the Postwar Era from the MCA Florentine Opera, Marcus Center for the Per Dona Rosila's Travelin' Jalapeno Kitchen Theme & Technique in Old Master Prints; Feb Collection forming Arts: Uihlein Hall; 273-7206; Feb 28, 8-Apr 6: Workers, An Archaeology of the Industrial Age: Photographs by Sebastio Mar 2 & 4: La Traviata Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N Printworks, 311 W Superior, suite 105; 312/ Salgado; Mar 22-May 4: Joseph Goldyne Water; 273-7206; Mar 18-23: ManofLa Mancha 664-9407; Feb 14-Mar 15: Phyllis Bramson: Historical Keyboard Society of Wisconsin, 818 Monotypes Tales of Love; Mar 21 -Apr 26: Martyl: Land E Juneau; 226-2224; Mar 14-23: American Marquette University Theatre, Helfaer Theatre, scapes of Memory Bach Project 525 N 13lh; 288-7504; Feb 12-13: Medsa Madison Art Center, 211 State; 608/257- 0158; Now-Feb 2: H C Westermann; Feb 16- Winnetka Antiques Show, 620 Lincoln, La Perla, 734 S 5th; 645-9888; Sundays: Jerry Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Broadway The Apr 13: Young at Art Winnetka; 847/446-0537; Mar 7-9 Grillo atre Center, 158 N Broadway; 276-8842; Now-Feb 2: The Cure at Troy, Feb 14-Mar 9, in Wisconsin Academy Gallery, 1922 Univer Wood Street Gallery, 1239 N Wood; 312/ Lawrence University, Appleton; 832-6585; rotating repertory: The Apple Carl; Smash; The sity; 608/263-1692; Feb: Charles Timm 227-3306; Now-Feb 22: Maquette Exhibition Mar 15: Christian McBride Music Cure; The Oak and the 'Gale Ballard; Mar: Kevin Earley for Pier Walk '97; Joe Zulawski Art Muscle 27 arVWsflM«IWaMMMMMMfl*M The League of Milwaukee Artists INCENSE, CANDLES, will jury new members at the MUSIC, TAROT Charles Allis Art Museum, CRYSTALS, JEWELRY 1630 E. Royal Place, Milwaukee, Wis., Sat. April 5, 1997. AROAAATHERAPY Submit work HERBS & HERBAL between 9:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. EXTRACTS 3 pieces, consistent style, suitably PSYCHIC READINGS framed. No photography or crafts. - EVERYDAY $15 2-D only. Pick up art at 1:00 p.m. Artists are invited to stay for meeting 1233 E. BRADY ST. • 276-3282 at 1:30 p.m. HOURS: MON-WED, 10AM-6PM Call 278-1397 for further information. THU/FRI, 10AM-7PM SAT 10AM-6PM Hermanos 3 ^V\£.xicLan C-uii-ins. ana ^aafooa Buffti JIAzmi HUGE MEXICAN BUFFET LUNCH The Taste of Mexico for only MUSIC FtVDK, S SATURDAY $4.99 t9if.ll Mon-Fri 1 lam-3pm TALENS8 Lincoln Avenue Only CAN SON® Van Gogh Van Gogh , Mft'slisl Biggie Jumbo Sketch 5 min. from Downtown • FREE convenient parking Watercolors Oil Colors 18"x24" 100-SHEET PAD W»SN0SI.SWtt. Retail MILWAUKEE'S PREMIER MEXICAN RESTAURANT OUtf M OUR S2?ss-$s=9s: $|30-$499 Retail $23T96 $1198 Arts & Crafts Retail Store 1100 W. National Ave. 1332 W. Lincoln Ave. 100A E. Pleasant St. (Walnut & 1ST), Milwaukee,Wl Ph: (414)384-8850 Ph: (414)384-9050 FAX (414)384-1022 Hours: M-F 8:30-6, SAT 9-5 414-264-1580 inna Milwauk ee Sculpture, Assemblage, Chinese Food Functional Art Objects S Celebrating 10 Years A Art/& Design Awarded Best Chinese Food & Best Chinese Delivery by the redders of the Shepherd Express 1996 m 1223 n. Prospect Ave. • ALL SAUCES AND RECIPES Saturdays 11-4 or by MADE FROM SCRATCH Appointment 774-4361 FROM OUR OWN SPECIAL RECIPES • ONLY 100% VEGETABLE OIL USED Prinimakers Member East Side STEAMED FOOD AVAILABLE Dan 17 - Feb 28 Gallery District Assoc. - Wise. Painters & Sculptors DINE IN • TAKEOUT GRAVA GALIJERy 1010 E. BRADY ST. 1209 EAST BRADY STREET TUE-FRI 10-6PM • SAT 10-5PM 271-8889 TELEPHONE: 277-8228 28 Art Muscle services photography DESKTOP AND INTERNET PUBLISHING COURSES... fse@97 • QuarkXPress8 • Adobe Illustrator" 9 C h i c a g • Adobe PageMaker • Adobe Photoshop" • Advanced PageMaker* • Advanced Photoshop Web Page Construction: Including HTML Basics THE SAD SeCRf-T and using Claris HomePage and Adobe PageMill •tahth International Mention Art Muscle and Symposium on Electronic Art September 22-27, 1997 Receive a 5% Discount! Calls fof p ocuicis iow posted CALL TODAY 414-258-1646 http:// ;du/~isea97 Ml*JK*5TUDk> r"E8l or call: (312)345-3571 OR VISIT OUR WEB SITE or email: [email protected] http://www.mactraining.c for a complete eSchool American \ Academic class list and The Art Institute of Chicago Abstract Primitive brochure Mannerist Art & PoeV INCOGNITO 637-4353 o O o help wanted Kf^ MODELS CUSTOM FRAMING NEEDED! PHONE HOURS Arc 414-272-0277 MWF 10-6 MEN & TTH 12-7 EAST WOMEN 1601 N. Van Buren St. SAT 12-4 art &C (ram e s L J Fashion Show V Extravaganza A Perks include hair for rent • i^v^L^fl and nail makeovers m Call 291-2856 Kathy 217 N. Broadway ALL PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT JRESHH TIE MILWAUKEE ADS PROJECT 277-9494 PRIVATE MINI STUDIO a month BR CURIOUS STUDIO ASSISTANT ANiiQurnEs CLAY Chatet at the Utiver A Gallery of Art and Artifacts 823 N. 2nd PLAYWRIGHTS WATERFORD 1-414-534-4406 Where the unique and unusual are expected Artists, hobbyists, art crafters- STUDIO —Featuring— THEATER use your quiet retreat whenever you wish. A place where you can • Original Audubon Prints PRESENTS work and snow your products. • Original Paxton Botanical Prints Festivals Five and Six 277-9898 • Ancient Egyptian Jewelry and Artifacts of the • 19th Century Congolese Weaponry ••/ Old Theater Mall • 169 East Wisconsin Ave, FESTIVAL OF 10-MINUTE PLAYS Oconomowoc, WI 53066 • FAX (414) 567-4320 yuW-Milwaukee. beauty FESTIVAL FIVE • FESTIVAL SIX (414) 567-8280 January 30 * February 6 r Assistant Professor. M.F.A. January 31 * February 7 Start August 1997. February 1 . February 8 Expertise in micro-computers. BARNEY'S BROTHER teach professional track courses: FESTIVALS FIVE & Six m REPERTORY Names of applicants who do not HAIR/NAILS February 13-16 request their names withheld and Festival 5, Feb. 13 ••• Festival 6, Feb. 14 Festival 5, Feb. 15 ••• Festival 6. Feb. 16 the names of finalists will be 276-6555 (ALL PERFORMANCES ARE AT 8 P.M. EXCEPT FEB. 16, 2 RM.) released upon request at Job Description: Located in Historic Third Ward The Stiemke Theater Richard Zauft, Chair, UWM Art 207 E. Buffalo St., Suite 604 Milwaukee Repertory Theater Dept, PO Box 413, Milwaukee, Wl Tuesday - Saturday Milwaukeee Center 53201. FX 414-22&6154. email: [email protected] 108 East Wells Street -distinction Deadline: 2/21/97. For ticket information, call 224-9490 Equal Opportunity Employer YOU DESERVE IT Laughing BOY Review 99.9% of Art Muscle's readers ate All You Can Eat-1310 cheese while Address all correspondence to Laughing.Boy Review ArtMiiscfe watching the Nikki Morawski - Editor 910 Minnesota Avenue South Milwaukee, Wl 53172 i Super Bowl. Or call issues #1 & #2 Available (414)764-8081 Submissions Accepted (with SASE) with inquiries Art Muscle 29 .' 8***I11I1• B ItBttltllKiit BIG by Nikki Morawski I never thought I'd see the day when 700 plus Milwaukeeans would brave the cold for poetry. I was wrong. I knew this was no ordinary reading. After all, we are talking about Seamus Heaney, the 1995 Nobel Prize winner for Literature. I still did not Wei Hsueh expect to find Centennial Hall filled to capacity. from series Boy, was I wrong. Wei Hsueh, 1996 silver gelatin print I walked in carrying an extra ticket to the event and 17.75" x 13.5" as I made my way into the hall, I heard a woman ask whether there were any tickets available. I turned at Carl Hammer around to find a trendy young woman—complete Gallery, Chicago Now-Feb. 8 with nose piercing and fake fur—and offered her the ticket. She looked at me as if I had just given her the three-week flu bug that's been going around, but of course, she took the ticket. Realizing she did not intend to be at all polite or utter a thank you, I moseyed off to find myself a seat. The atmosphere inside the hall was much more encouraging. A current ran through the room. A very eclectic group of people relished this once in a lifetime event. Everyone and their grandparents Coffee at Barnes and Noble were there—literally. I could feel the anticipation. by Sandra Marguiius Especially since the frigid temperatures put every one in their biggest coats and sweaters, which did We sat drinking cafe not allow for much elbow room. The City Librarian, mocha and cappuccino at Barnes and Kate Huston, introduced Montgomery Davis, Noble. Four women of different Artistic Director of The Milwaukee Chamber ages, sizes and marital Theater, and mentioned that the library had never status, discussing men, women, before hosted a Nobel Prize winner. divorce, self-esteem, astrology, Tarot cards, our children, husbands, This was big. ex-husbands, shyster lawyers, our anger and phobias. Mr. Davis introduced Mr. Heaney and mentioned that Mayor Norquist wanted to attend but was out of We laughed as we began male town and sent his best. bashing concluding that men think exclusively with their This was really big. dicks and could never really understand women who are less Mr. Heaney's performance was a wonderful experi logical, but whose naive ence. He read old poems, new poems, translations trust leaves them open to and even recited a verse from "The Cure at Troy" having their hearts ripped dripping from memory. Read isn't exactly the right word. He red Kool Aid from their ribs. had his books in front of him and flipped pages between each poem, but he never looked down at We met on the pretense of reading the words. He didn't need to read them. Each poem to each other, to critique is not just in his memory—they are his memories. our writings, but never quite And in turn, each of his shared memories became got that far our words part of the collective memory of hundreds of spilling from our lips Milwaukeeans. quickly, like coffee dripping down a Corian countertop reflecting After the reading I was ashamed of myself for muddy puddles on wet doubting that the people of Milwaukee would fill a white tiles. Our excitement hall for poetry—even Nobel Prize winning poetry. In the end, after a standing ovation for Mr. Heaney, crescendoed as the collective someone announced that a car in the parking lot voice of our common experiences was blocking the car of a father with two small chil connected us, like a single dren. For a moment I thought I was going to lose silk thread—sewing us my brand-new mushy feeling for the people of together, creating a unified piece Milwaukee who packed a room for something from a myriad of individual besides the Packers (God Bless 'Em!). Then the patterns, each one beautiful on its announcer added that the car had Illinois license own, yet emerging joyously, as a singular plates. Mushy feeling restored—I'm hoping the car work of womanly art. belonged to the trendy girl. This poem originally appeared in Laughing Boy Review Nlkkl Morawski is a Milwaukee poet #1, August 1996, Milwaukee. and Editor of Laughing Boy Review. 30 Art Muscle Do you love Milwaukee? Or do you hate it? Are you disgruntled or gruntled? Staying here for good HEY or leaving on the first train outta here? Here's your chance to let the world* know what you think. Send us a letter, a postcard, a picture, or use the blank space below to tell us your feelings about YOU! Milwaukee's arts scene. How does it stack up? What's good? What's bad? What's missing? What's needed? Whether you're into music, visual art, theater, writing, botany, geothermal mechanics, or whatever, we want to hear from you. And don't hold back now, y'hear? Try to get your response in by March 1st. Responses will be compiled and presented together in Art Muscle's April/May issue. TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: ^Includes Milwaukee and surrounding suburbs Please also provide your name & a brief description of yourself. Pop this In the mail, addressed to : Art Muscle, Milwaukee Forum, 901 W. National Av., Milw., Wl 53204. Thanks. Art Muscle reserves the right to edit text. Call us at 672-8485 if you have any questions. to benefit I^Jieatre X and Wild Space Dance Company Saturday, February 8, at the v Italian for information Community on this gala event Center 414 278-0555 Mask by Lois Leonard Join co-hosts Mike Gousha and Lynn Sprangers to enjoy appearances by your favorite Theatre Xers, an exotic silent auction, a performance by Wild Space Dance Company featuring over 40 original masks, a delicious New Orleans style meal, and dancing to the Ernie Brusabardis Jazz Band. Art Muscle 31