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Current Tendencies ARTISTS FROM MILWAUKEE 1 August 31-December 31, 2011 Artists featured in Marquette professors participating Current Tendencies Current Tendencies II in the Current Tendencies II ARTISTS FROM MILWAUKEE include: writing project include: Reginald Baylor Dr. Bonnie Brennen (Journalism) Mark Brautigam Dr. Roberta Coles (Social and Cultural Sciences} Julian Correa Dr. Ryan Hanley (Political Science) Current Tendencies II features 10 Milwaukee Lisa Hecht Dr. Thomas Jablonsky (History/Institute for Urban Life) artists working in a variety of media including: Sharon Kerry-Harlan Dr. Jason Ladd (Music) photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, video and sculpture. The exhibition presents Luc Leplae Dr. Richard Lewis (Educational Opportunity Program) many all-new, never-before-seen works, created specifically for the Haggerty Museum. Will Pergl Dr. Danielle Nussberger (Theology) Each artist was paired with a Marquette professor who wrote a reflection of the artist’s Nathaniel Stern and Dr. Melissa Shew (Philosophy) Jessica Meuninck-Ganger Dr. Larry Watson (English) work based on the professor’s area of expertise, creating dialogue between artist and Jordan Waraksa scholar and connecting philosophy, theology, political science, communications, etc., to the works in the exhibition. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Haggerty Museum of Art Friends of the Haggerty, the Joan Pick Marquette University Endowment Fund, the Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Andrew W. Mellon Fund and the Kathleen and Frank Thometz Charitable Foundation. 2 3 Mark Brautigam American, b. 1972 Eau Claire River, Wausau, 2008 From the On Wisconsin series Archival pigment print 20 x 25” Courtesy4 of the Tory Folliard Gallery and the artist 5 Professor/Chair ROBERTA COLES, Ph.D. Department of Social and Cultural Sciences Gazing at a Reginald Baylor painting or drawing is akin to playing the picture puzzle games I grew up with, the ones where you tried to find the hidden objects embedded in an illustration. In many of his works, one can find a Frank Lloyd Wright house, Dr. Seuss’s Things 1 & 2, an Apple Jacks cereal icon, and an Andy Warhol pig. In addition, Baylor embeds objects that have personal meaning for him—a square watermelon (representing what is possible), a square basketball (representing the impossible, the useless), trucks and road signs (from the years he spent as an over-the- road truck driver). This dense, symbol-ridden style is found throughout Baylor’s prolific pop culture collection, which in many ways chronicles post-WWII American culture. Baylor grew up in Mequon, Wisconsin, the middle son of a mother with a doctorate in social work and a father who was a truck driver. As an African American, Baylor says people often expect that his artwork should have social justice themes, but influenced by pop artist Andy Warhol and abstract expressionist Cy Twombly, Baylor seems most fascinated by the infinite playful possibilities discovered in the lines, colors and shapes of life’s most ordinary scenes and objects: a porch, a chair, popcorn, nasturtiums, paper dolls, a cereal box, a Hollywood icon, a Google image. Nonetheless, his works lend themselves to multiple interpretations, intended or not, and Baylor likes it that way. Baylor sees himself foremost as an architect, as his early works were largely land and cityscapes built mostly with geometric straight lines and angles, resulting in Lego-like florals. Now his signature style uses flowing lines and shapes to construct landscapes, still lifes, and portraits with a stained-glass or paint-by-numbers mosaic quality. A passionate pragmatist, yet risk taker, Baylor makes his work more accessible to the public by transforming his older works into new works through the use of digital technology and continuous experimentation with new media, such as chalk, cloth, and wood. Let Baylor’s works stimulate your own imaginings of what is possible. Reginald Baylor American, b. 1966 Puzzled White Woman with Pink Contacts, 2011 From the Puzzled series Digital animation Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist REGINALD BAYLOR This dense, symbol-ridden style is found throughout Baylor’s Reginald Baylor focuses much of his time working artist-in-residence at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, within his community preserving the importance of art Wisconsin. In 2010 he received a Wisconsin Arts Board prolific pop culture collection, which in many ways chronicles for all generations. Baylor works in a variety of media Artist Fellowship Award. Baylor has a bachelor of arts including: acrylic on canvas paintings, woodcuts, digital degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. post-WWII American culture. media, prints on paper and mixed media on fabric. His prints and paintings have been exhibited nationally and Baylor’s current technique grew out of a philosophy class featured in publications throughout the Midwest. Baylor discussion that later sparked the artist’s infatuation with has been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, “the line” and its associated theories and functions. commissions, and residencies. In 2007 he was selected The pivotal point in this path came from talking to Serge for a monthlong residency at Ragdale in Lake Forest, Armando, a straight-edge California Minimalist artist, Illinois. As a direct result of the residency he decided to who suggested that Baylor use masking tape as a tool end his truck-driving day job and pursue a full-time career for decisively executing the linear quality of his work. in fine art. In 2009 Baylor was chosen as the inaugural 6 7 Visiting Professor LARRY WATSON, Ph.D. Department of English The human eye is a narrative-making organ, though that function is not always turned on and is unpredictably activated. Of all the images we take in during the course of a day, only a few truly stop us. I don’t mean the freakish or contrived sights—the man with the pet tarantula on his shoulder or the woman in the dress made of Post-It notes— but those everyday images that suddenly arrest our attention, that we look at and that somehow look back at us and make us feel, there’s a story here. This is what occurs repeatedly when we look at Mark Brautigam’s photographs. We see something, and no matter how ordinary the sight might be—a group of sunbathers somehow isolated even in their own company, an old woman raking her garden, a horse turned toward us with an almost-human gaze—our own imaginations have been unexpectedly set into motion. The stories behind these pictures probably can’t be known, but that doesn’t matter. Confronted with these photographs we feel a significance that accompanies the best narratives, even if that significance can’t be fully articulated. Just as stories have both character and setting, Mark Brautigam’s photographs direct us to people and places. Is it possible to look at that man standing outside a Superior, Wisconsin, bar and not wonder about his life—and the building’s? Has there ever been a storyteller who has conjured a setting as beautiful and mysterious—yet as commonplace—as that simple white house, lit with butter-yellow light and surrounded by the deep dark blues of snow and night sky? What must it be like to live in one of those monochrome, buff-colored buildings that huddle under the water-tower word “Luck”? These are quiet, subtle images, but they have remarkable expressive power. This ability, to make us question and to feel, to lodge visions in our minds that stick, is Mark Brautigam’s great talent. Mark Brautigam American, b. 1972 Of course craft is involved, the camera and its settings, the photographer’s patience with light and shadow, but first Superior, 2007 From the On Wisconsin series is the artist’s sensibility. This is Mark Brautigam’s gift, and it travels from his eye to ours. Archival pigment print 20 x 25” Courtesy of the Tory Folliard Gallery and the artist In 2004 Brautigam began to make photographs in MARK Wisconsin, his home state. Initially he never set out with a specific theme or destination. Guided both by the act BRAUTIGAM of looking deeply into a familiar place and the allure of the unexpected, he sought to make photographs that are personal, yet open-ended enough to absorb the viewer. As he made these photographs over the years, early Mark Brautigam is a photographer living in Milwaukee. memories of a simpler existence and an acute need to In 2010, he completed his first major project, On escape our over-connected and increasingly alienating This ability, to make us question and to feel, to lodge visions Wisconsin. In 2009 he was a Mary L. Nohl Fellowship society began to meld with the muted landscapes, subtle Emerging Artist finalist and the recipient of the Arthur P. narratives, and everyday characters for which he actively in our minds that stick, is Mark Brautigam’s great talent. Haas Memorial Photography Award. Brautigam attended searched. Each image a paragraph unto itself, the the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He holds a resulting photographs inhabit both fiction and memory. B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of From summer’s exuberance to wintry isolation, the Minnesota and served as an officer in the United States seasonal patterns on which they flow reflect the natural Marine Corps for four years. Brautigam is an art director hunger and boredom of everyday life, revealing a sense at GS Design in Glendale, Wisconsin. of wonder in the ordinary. 8 9 Professor/Director, Institute for Urban Life THOMAS Department of History JABLONSKY, Ph.D. Cities are considered to be the most dramatic expression of the human footprint on this planet. Hundreds of years from now when the remains of our civilization are dug up and interpreted, remnants of our cities are likely to be the central focus for these investigators by virtue of its sheer volume of material.