Milwaukee Independent Gallery Association

Katy Keefe and Chris Niver at Green Gallery West

2009-05-11T20:48:00.001-07:00

The two person show opening Friday May 15^th at The Green Gallery West will be featuring the work of Artists Katy Keefe, and Chris Niver. The process rich work of both Keefe and Niver, explores the potential of a media, and its ability through form and abstraction to describe a place or emotion, to tell a narrative, or to translate personalities or characteristics.

The careful and delicate work of Chris Niver documents imagined places. While the craft is inviting and impecable the subject matter feels ominous or anxious taking the viewer on a journey through a series of dominating unfamiliar landscapes. “I can imagine a sailor .. stitching this linen. The sailor is preoccupied… with water and death. He is all too aware of the messiness and fragility of life because he is vulnerable to the enormous power of the sea… He deals with his anxieties by slowly and painstakingly rendering them, the repetition of stitches like a chant that quiets the voices of doubt” Niver says about his own process and work.

Katy Keefe’s new body of work Eyes to the Unknown is an investigation in translation of human subjects and personality into imagery. The paintings/ Drawings reveal layers of enveloping flora, geometric shapes and figures reading almost as a “visual diary” creating a bending landscape that describes much more than just space. Keefe describes the work as emitting, “profound optimism and regeneration”. She describes her new paintings “The work in this exhibition addresses themes of love and enlightenment using individuals as the vehicles for expression”.

The work of Katy Keefe and Chris Niver will be on display from May 15^th through June 19^th. There will be an opening reception for the artists on the 15^th from 8 – 11 pm at The Green Gallery West, located at 631 E. Center, Milwaukee, WI.

for more info visit www.thegreengallery.biz

The Green Gallery East

2009-05-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

The Green Gallery East presents:
Lovable Like Orphan Kitties and Bastard Children

Curated by Kristin Calabrese and Joshua Aster
Opening Reception: May 9th 4-10pm

On May 9th, 2009 Milwaukee will be given the opportunity to survey a sampling of the LA contemporary art scene. Seventy-eightpaintings, 11 x 11 inches and under, by seventy-eight different artists, will be brought from Los Angeles via bag check and carry-on by LA based artists Kristin Calabrese and Joshua Aster. The artists differ in their aesthetics, their styles, as well as, their stages of development and exposure but they will all be converging from May 9th until June 6th in Milwaukee's Green Gallery East.

Full list of artists click HERE

Gallery Night this Friday

2009-04-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

This Friday, April 17 is Spring Gallery Night. The following MIGA galleries will be open:

The Armoury Gallery

5:00 - 9:00 pm

"Night Work"

With work by Sonja Thomsen, Nicholas Lampert, Shana McCaw & Brent Budsberg and Nathaniel Stern & Jessica Meuninck-Ganger

Paper Boat

7:00 - 10:00 pm **last opening ever!**

"Bullies"

New work by Micaela O'Herlihy

Green Gallery East

4:00 - 8:00 pm

"Michelle Grabner, Silverpoint Drawings with Guest Mobile"

Green Gallery West

5:00 - 9:00 pm

New work by Frankie Martin

Portrait Society

5:00 - 9:00 pm

"Tender is the Line, An Exhibition of Drawing"

With work by Paul Caster, Sally Duback, Jean Roberts Guequierre, Steve Ohlrich, Steve Lubahn, Claire Stigliani and Dawn Turner.

Paper Boat last show!

2009-04-01T06:14:00.000-07:00

Join us for our last show ever!

"Bullies"

New Work by Wisconsin artist Micaela O'Herlihy

April 17 - May 31st, 2009

Opening reception Gallery Night 7-10pm

Paper Boat closing

2009-04-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

Below is a very sad announcement from Faythe and Kim at Paper Boat:

Dearest patrons of Paper Boat,

As of May 31st Paper Boat Boutique & Gallery will be closing its doors after 4 great years of being open. The current economic climate is the main reason that led us to this very difficult decision.

We really hope you can join us for our last Gallery reception featuring work by Wisconsin artist Micaela O'Herlihy on Gallery Night, April 17th from 7-10pm.

There will also be a closing sale for the month of May to help us reduce our inventory. It will be a great time to pick up those items you've always been meaning to get. Also, don't forget to spend your gift certificates if you have been holding onto one!

We thank you so very much for your support over the past 4 years. Even though the Boat is closing, we are excited to seek out new opportunities and projects. We also want to stress the importance of supporting the remaining small businesses and galleries in Milwaukee. Those spaces are vital to keeping our city and our community unique and enjoyable.

We hope to see all of you during the last couple of months of being open!

Warm regards,
The ladies of the Boat-Faythe Levine & Kim Kisiolek

Frankie Martin @ Greeen Gallery West

2009-03-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

Frankie Martin @ Green Gallery West
April 3rd - May 3rd 2009

Opening Reception Friday April 3rd 8 - 11 pm

Frankie Martin will have work in the main gallery, the John Riepenhoff Experience and Club Nutz.
http://www.frankiefeverforever.com/

Erica Somogyi will be showing an animation in the Video Arcade
http://www.throughthetrees.net/

Frankie will be showing new video works as well as some painting, and stills. Who Died? is a 5 part, two channel, non-linear narrative video that reinterprets popular representations of death and the transcendence of the human body.
Frankie will also present part of her series Left Behind which features paintings and mobiles based on the idea of what gets left behind. To do this she stretches her drop cloths as paintings, and gathers things from her neighborhood, or from her own garbage can. The idea is that these 'things' become non-things, then become re-contextualized as 'things' again.
In the John Reipenhoff Experience, Frankie will exhibit Born Again, a video in which Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is reborn into the format of video. The video is a 3 minute loop in which Venus is born again and again. This piece speaks to the recycling of ideas with in art history and the merging of painting and video.
Freakout, her live act which has morphed from comedic dance to dark comedy will be performed in Club Nutz.

www.thegreengallery.tk
www.thegreengallery.biz

Night Work @ the Armoury Gallery

2009-03-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

Night Work

Opening reception:

Friday March 27, 6:00 - 10:00 pm

Show runs: March 27 - May 2

Featuring:

Nathaniel Stern

Jessica Meuninck Ganger
Nicolas Lampert
Shana McCaw & Brent Budsberg
Sonja Thomsen

The Armoury Gallery is pleased to announce its 8th exhibition: NightWork. Focusing specifically on professional artists working as artprofessors and instructors in Milwaukee, Night Work is an exciting crosssection of some of Milwaukee's most talented and recognized artists;three of whom are featured in the Current Tendencies exhibition at theHaggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University. Night work includes twocollaborative teams, Nathaniel Stern & Jessica Meuninck-Ganger and ShanaMcCaw & Brent Budsberg, as well as new 2D work by Nicolas Lampert andrecent photographs by Sonja Thomsen.

Along with teaching at UW-Milwaukee, Nicolas Lampert is a curator, aco-editor of a book on anti-war illustrations and an artist who works ina variety of media and has exhibited his work extensively across the country and abroad. Lampert co-curated a traveling political art show that toured 33 cities in Canada and the US during a five year run. He has work in the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in NewYork and Milwaukee's own Art Museum. Lampert is also part of theJustseeds Radical Artist's Cooperative that is currently exhibiting an installation at UWM's Union Art Gallery.

Taking over the installation room will be a collaboration by Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg. In seven years of collaboration, McCaw andBudsberg's work has evolved from playful performances about human interaction and rites of passage toward miniature architectural installations investigating transition, space and the passage of time.For Night Work, McCaw and Budsberg will exhibit two new companion sculptures. Incorporating a mysterious wind and subdued atmospheric effects, both pieces create a perception of space beyond the gallery wall, while also suggesting an indirect narrative. McCaw teaches at theMilwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Cardinal Stritch and Budsberg is a MIAD 3-d lab supervisor. As a collaborative team, they won a 2008Mary Nohl Fellowship in the Established Artist category.

First time collaborative duo Jessica Meuninck-Ganger and Nathaniel Stern will present a new series of works. Playfully called "Distill Life,"this series incorporates technologies and aesthetics from traditional printmaking – including Japanese woodblock and engraving circa the1800s, present-day etching, stone lithography, photogravure etc –with the technologies and aesthetics of contemporary digital, video and networked art, in order to create new forms. Hailing from South Africa, and currently studying for his PhD throughTrinity College in Dublin, Ireland, Nathaniel Stern joined the Milwaukee arts community in 2008 for his position with the Peck School of the Arts at UW Milwaukee. His work has been exhibited internationally, and he has a host of awards, residencies and fellowships to his credit. Jessica Meuninck-Ganger earned her MFA at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and currently teaches at the Peck School of the Arts, also having a host of honors, residencies and exhibitions to her credit.

Earning her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2004, SonjaThomsen will present a series of new works from her time spent in 2008 at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Englewood, Florida. Most recently featured in the aforementioned Current Tendencies exhibition at Marquette's Haggerty Museum of Art, Sonja has exhibited her work nationally and her photographs are included in the permanent collectionat the Milwaukee Art Museum. Thomsen currently teaches photography classes at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and was a founding member of the Coalition of Photographic Arts (CoPA), serving as president until June of 2008.

Michelle Grabner Silver Point Drawings with Guest Mobile

2009-03-12T14:16:00.000-07:00

March 14 - May 3, 2009

opening reception: March 14, 4-9pm

For this, our second exhibition at Green Gallery East, we are pleased to present new silverpoint drawings by Michelle Grabner with a mobile by Brad Killam. Grabner's paintings and silverpoints index the essentialism of time. Created with lines, marks, ticks, points, and dots Grabner's compositions are simply organized, accumulated, and sequenced, directing the viewer's focus to formal concerns and away from associations and referent. As Michelle writes "thus leaving virtually no space for the imagination or invention." There is nothing signified or expressed - nothing to be interpreted - only a methodical indication or trace of time's passage. Grabner's works underscore the poetics of constraints and sameness.

We are also honored to be the first gallery to show Spanish born artist, José Lerma, in Milwaukee. Lerma will be exhibiting new work in the back room. His mumbling brush strokes and muted pastels articulate a sophisticated and honest contribution to contemporary painting.

Exhibition will run from March 14th until May 3rd
Gallery Hours: Thurs, Fri 4-8 PMSat, Sun 2-6 PM

Gallery Update

2009-03-04T05:24:00.000-08:00

It's probably a little late, but I realized we should mention some recent gallery changes. For those who don't already know, Spackle Gallery and the White Whale Collective have both closed their doors.

jw lawson FINE ART has now relocated to a new space at 414 E Homer Street in Bayview, and is now having events under a new name, War Room. You can find more information about the new space and upcoming events at their WEBSITE or BLOG.

The Green Gallery's original space on Center Street in Riverwest has now officially become The Green Gallery West with the recent addition of The Green Gallery East. The newest Green Gallery spot is located on the East side of Milwaukee on Farwell Avenue. Visit their new webiste HERE.

We're Anonym.us @ the Armoury Gallery

2009-02-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

Lost in a Volcanic Maze:
dispatches from we're anonym.us
Friday March 13th, 6:00 - 10:00 pm

This is the next event that we're having at the gallery. It is a one night event showcasing the work of local filmmaker Brian Perkins. It will combine 2-D art with projected film, and there will be a screening at 7:30 pm.

2009-02-04T18:41:00.000-08:00

The Green Gallery West is pleased to present a new exhibition of work by Paul Stoelting. An opening reception for the work will be held this Friday February 6th from 8 to 11 pm at 631 East Center Street, 3rd floor. This is the artist's second solo exhibition at the gallery.
In this exhibition Stoelting continues to extract narrative and conceptual congruence from a grouping of disparate objects assembled from found and appropriated materials. The work offers an explicit examination of relationships between art, design, and commerce and is comprised of three individual artworks with supplementary seating.

In the work, Chromatic Interjection, a limited-edition suite of 18 collages, photographs of canonical figures of mid-century modernism are removed from a Design Within Reach "Annual Book" and marked with a stripe of commercial duct tape in one of 18 colors. Two of the pages include catalog copy in the form of quotations by Vernor Panton and Isamu Noguchi; respectively, "One sits better on a color that one likes", and "In my work, I wanted something irreducible, an absence of the gimmicky and clever." The tape appears again on Untitled Sculpture 1, a tall, slender, white monochrome made from a warped and pitted beam of "presentation-grade" lumber. In the third work, the catalog returns as the site of a drawn representation of Untitled Sculpture 1, where the page acts as a virtual gallery, and the sculpture is assigned its price.

Paul Stoelting was born in 1981 and lives in Milwaukee. Most recently, his work appeared in the NADA Art Fair Miami, the Milwaukee International Art Fair, and Dark Fair at Swiss Institute in New York. Stoelting will be part of the upcoming Green Gallery-curated exhibition, Wallgasm, at Angstrom gallery in Los Angeles.

address:631 E Center St 3rd floorMilwaukee, WI 53212
hours:by appointment contact info@thegreengallery.biz
online:www.thegreengallery.tk

Dwayne Butcher @ WAR ROOM

2009-01-31T10:14:00.000-08:00

Smart People Paper #34, 2008 © Dwayne Butcher

Here it is folks, the first show in the WAR ROOM!!!!

Due to the move and various other complications, the remainder of 2008's exhibitions at jw lawson FINE ART were postponed. Well now we can get back on the horse and ride. The WAR ROOM is showing art!

I just (moments ago) finished installing Dwayne Butcher's series of works on paper entitled Smart People Paper. These dandy and fun little paint & ink drawings represent contemplative studies and sketches that fall somewhere between Butcher's paintings and installation pieces.

Butcher is a poet, a painter, an installer, a curator, an organizer...Let's just say he does about everything there is to do with art in Memphis. I am proud to have his work in Milwaukee and I hope you are too.

Ranging in size from 5x9 ($40) to 11x14 ($60), these works will sell fast! Stop on by or call for an appointment to see this work. The work will remain installed until April 2009 or until Mrs. Parkhurst decides to install her work in March.

jw lawson FINE ART

414 E. Homer St.
MILWAUKEE WI 53207
414.562.4568

2009-01-25T12:18:00.000-08:00

The Green Gallery East presents Lift: Part 2, a work by David Robbins

opening reception Saturday January 31st 4-9pm

The Green Gallery East

1500 N Farwell Ave.

Imagine a work of communication that abjures any hierarchy of media. Instead of a vertical ordering of media or contexts—traditionally, art “above,” entertainment “below”--we encounter a work that exists in multiple, competing, contrasting cultural forms simultaneously. Is such a work, which incorporates art but positions it as one communication form in an expanded field of forms each with its use, to be considered an “artwork” or something else?

David Robbins activates these and related questions in an exhibition that inaugurates The Green Gallery’s new space on Milwaukee’s east side. From January 31 through March 7, three realist paintings of key images from Lift, Robbins’ thirty-minute video portrait of personal trainer Joshua Van Schaick, will be displayed at Green Gallery East. The only paintings made from the video, this trio of canvases, executed by assistants, forms a unique, chained identity. Integrated with the paintings is a new video that uses excerpts from a 2006 conversation between Robbins and the trainer to explore whether Van Schaick might himself be considered an artist. A brochure expanding on this question, with a text authored by Robbins, is available gratis to gallery visitors.

During the exhibition Lift will be broadcast twice on commercial television, February 14 and 28, on Milwaukee’s WVTV18. Robbins thus transposes a single work into two keys—gallery exhibition and broadcast media. Competing ends of the communication spectrum--television, oil paint—are juxtaposed. “Mass” and “refined” economies, “entertainment” and “art” venues are contrasted while privileging neither.

The strategy extends discoveries Robbins made with his well-known Ice Cream Social (1993-2008). “There,” he explains, “I explored different forms—performance, installation, TV pilot, novella, etc—in stages, over many years. Lift: Part 2 also uses an expanded exhibition model, but with an important difference. I’m now presenting the same work in contradictory forms at the same time. For me it’s the next step.” Additionally, structure and theme now parallel each other, with the expanded exhibition model, which by its nature challenges the definition of “an artwork,” joined to subject matter which challenges our definition of “an artist.”



Lift (2007) is a video portrait of a young man who transformed himself from a hot-tempered, violent adolescent into a compassionate and philosophical personal trainer. Praised by commentators as “a new kind of monument” and “a lovely character study,” Lift was published in a DVD edition of 1000. Following the artist’s intentions, copies were distributed to high-school athletic programs and donated to contemporary art museums across the United States—an unprecedented pairing.

Where Lift exemplifies Robbins’ notion of High Entertainment, a concept of media that combines entertainment’s accessibility with art’s traditional emphasis on form-discovery, the paintings tap classical concerns. The paintings lend gravity to depictions of a recent social phenomenon—the personal trainer, a symbol of our striving for health and beauty. The trainer, as a social role, focuses our yearning for perfectibility, the myriad problematics of self-image, the desire for self-transformation, the fleeting nature of physical beauty… In these canvases the trainer is shown as meditative, self-conscious, moody… What theater of the mind/body relationship is represented in such images? Is this trainer contemplating ways to enhance the unique energy of each individual? Is he perhaps emburdened by his clients’ need of him? Does compassion vie with a disdain for the vulnerability they’ve revealed? And what does it mean to bring this agent into art? By creating paintings that showcase this symbol of our hopes for ourselves, is Robbins celebrating or questioning our belief that art, which gives our minds and spirits a workout as nothing else quite can, will train us in a more elevated life?

One of the first artists to investigate the art world’s entrance into the culture industry, through his objects, images, installations, and writings, and his introduction of such “non-art” concepts as Concrete Comedy and High Entertainment, David Robbins has been an international influence on contemporary artists for twenty years. Emerging in New York during the 1980s, Robbins pioneered an unflinchingly contemporary attitude that positioned art as another form of entertainment, a line of thought he has since advanced in more than three dozen solo exhibitions with wit, independent spirit, and conceptual rigor. Best known for his works Talent (1986), which is included in dozens of private and public collections, and The Ice Cream Social (1993-2008), which enjoyed a retrospective treatment at the Musee d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris, Mr. Robbins is also the author of several influential books, most recently The Velvet Grind: Selected Essays, Interviews, Satires (1983-2005), published in 2006 by JRP/Ringier Kunstverlag, Zurich. He has lectured at many leading universities, among them UCLA, MIT, Columbia University, the Art Institute of Chicago, Goldsmith’s College, London, and L’ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. Lift: Part 2 is Robbins’ first exhibition of new works since 2005.

gallery hours are:
Th & Fr 4-8pm
Sat & Sun 2-6pm

more info & images can be found at www.thegreengallery.biz

Kind of Abject

2008-12-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

The Green Gallery presents "Kind of Abject," a show of paintings curated by Milwaukee artist Leshitski, opening Friday, Dec. 26, 8-11 p.m.

The show includes paintings by:
Leshitski (Milwaukee)
Olga Rose (Toronto)
Kao Xiu (Beijing)
Nicholas Frank (Milwaukee)
Roni Lane (Eau Claire)
Monroe Dock (Portland)
Louisa Clark (Houston)
Steven Burnham (Milwaukee)
Evan Keller (New York)

When gallery owner John Riepenhoff asked Leshitski why he wanted the show to be about abjection, Leshitski said, "Well, it's not really about that, I guess. I don't know. I couldn't figure out whether a truly abject person could still have a sense of humor about things." The paintings in the show are meant to be funny, but with a touch of lost optimism hanging over things.

The Green Gallery West is located at
631 E. Center St. 3rd floor
Milwaukee, WI 53202
USA

more info can be found at www.thegreengallery.tk

In Sequence - Friday, December 5th.

2008-11-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

IN SEQUENCE

Opening night is Friday, December 5th from 7pm-11pm

The White Whale Artist Collective is proud to exhibit IN SEQUENCE, a group show based on the narrative form of comic books. This show will display the myriad of ways the theme and format of the 'comic book' has inspired this group of artists.

Participating artists include:

Allyson Lassiter
Aries Tjhin
Marcus Wichmann
Anne Harvey, Chris Beetow
Melanie Kehoss
Sam Dodge
Odin Cabal.

For more information contact: info@whitewhalecollective.com

Mark Borchardt Along the Way

2008-11-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

November 22nd through December 21st. 2008
Opening reception Saturday November 22nd 6 - 9pm

@The Green Gallery
631 E. Center St. 3rd floor
Milwaukee, WI 53212

Mark Borchardt, Milwaukee filmmaker and writer, will be debuting his first solo show of photographs at The Green Gallery. Mark has been working on both sides of the lens in film for years so he has a trained eye for photograph moments, and almost always carries a still camera with him. This collection of candid photographs is the result of several years of collected photos that Mark took along the way in his daily life and travels. It shows a humanistic portrait of the Midwest, in it's desolate beauty, mobile homes, aging vehicles, great skies, and nostalgias.

Mark also prepared a miniature solo exhibition of his photos for the John Riepenhoff Experience that will open at the same time as the main show.

Also, Green Gallery PRESS published a limited edition booklet of short stories and poems written by Mark, and will be available the night of the opening reception, Nov. 22nd from 6-9pm.

more info can be found at www.thegreengallery.tk

Milwaukee's Own @ the Armoury Gallery

2008-11-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

Friday, December 5th 6:00 – 10:00 pm
The Armoury’s next exhibition looks homeward, featuring four local artists – kathryn e. martin, Harvey Opgenorth, Mary DiBiasio and Colin T Dickson.

The Armoury Gallery is pleased to announce its 6th and most experimental exhibition to date: Milwaukee’s Own. Featuring four of Milwaukee’s most exciting young artists, this not-to-be-missed exhibition will fill the gallery space almost entirely with installation work, including a stalactite cave of muslin, Styrofoam remnants in cloud-like formations, and an optical game involving two walls, a ceiling and giant gold nuggets.

Milwaukee artists kathryn e. martin, Harvey Opgenorth, and Colin T Dickson will utilize the three week break between exhibitions to work in the gallery space, each creating site-specific pieces encompassing a majority of the exhibition space. Mary DiBiasio will present a new series of mixed media works to round out the exhibition. Each artist uses repetition of shape, form, and line in limited color palettes to examine our understanding, perception and relationship to objects and places, simultaneously redefining the interior spaces of the gallery.

The Green Gallery this Friday Oct 17th

2008-10-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

GAYLEN GERBER
@The Green Gallery
631 E Center Street
3rd floor
Milwaukee, WI 53212

Oct 17 – Nov 15, 2008

reception
Friday Oct 17th
from 7-11pm

The Green Gallery is pleased to present its first exhibition of works by Gaylen Gerber.

Gerber's practice is regularly situated in relation to the work of other artists. In this exhibition Gerber presents five new paintings realized in conjunction with five unidentified artists.

Gerber is interested in addressing ideas surrounding perception and particularly the role of context in perception. Gerber’s own work often acts as the contextual ground for the expressions of other artists. For his exhibition with The Green Gallery, Gerber continues to examine the role of the contextual ground in the interpretation of art but also specifically foregrounds the background as an expressive element itself.

In previous exhibitions Gerber has been interested in the normative aspects of visual language: the way we, as part of a shared culture, accept certain forms, colors, etc. as institutional, or we take them for granted as neutral common ground. These visual norms act as grounds for all other forms of expression and we use them to register difference and create meaning. Gerber’s own work is often positioned so that it highlights these relationships by representing the frequently invisible normative aspects of visual language, suggested by their “neutral” gray color as well as by the casting of other artworks as the figurative elements against this ground.

Gerber’s paintings typically begin as grey monochrome canvases painted by Gerber. Gerber then gives these paintings to other artists to use as supports for their work. By contrast, Gerber structures this exhibition around a number of paintings acquired second-hand whose authorship is undetermined. The paintings all shared an important attribute, which is that each emphasized the image of the painting as the artwork’s primary expression. Taking these Available Paintings as his starting point, Gerber repainted the face of each painting either white, to match the initial ground of the canvas, or his customary neutral gray color. In doing so, Gerber conflated differences between image and ground, questioning both the “neutrality” of the ground and emphasizing the conditional quality of the relationship between expression and ground.

Gerber draws further parallels between the contextual ground and the images that are differentiated against it in the installation of the exhibition. Original colors from the exhibited artworks, now painted over, are displaced onto the walls of the exhibition space, suggesting a porosity between elements of the exhibition. For example, when we try to “see” Support, a 20 x 24” heavily impastoed painting in which Gerber has obscured the painting’s image by repainting it white, everything but the image, including the exhibition context that would normally become its background, remains in the foreground of our perception and understanding. Conversely, when we focus on the situation of the work, there is a suggestion that it is unclear exactly where the context ends and Support begins.

Recognizing the shifting relationships between the expression and its ground is at the heart of Gerber’s exhibition and draws attention to a central aspect of perception, which is that to perceive something at all you must first be able to distinguish it from its background.

For more information contact The Green Gallery at johnnypop@gmail.com.

www.thegreengallery.tk

Paper Boat Gallery Opening: Gallery Night

2008-10-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

Join us......

Paper Boat Gallery presents:
Work by Kimberly Weiss & Joseph Rizzo
October 3- November 23rd
Opening reception Gallery Night, Friday October 17th 7-10pm

Paper Boat is pleased to bring the dynamic prints of Milwaukee based artist Kimberly Weiss and Minneapolis based artist Joseph Rizzo. Weiss will be showing her series titled "Tough Knots, Bad Landings" which combines relief printmaking and collage to depict natural disasters in a decorative arts style. She received a BFA in Printmaking from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2004. Joseph's paintings showcase his unique eye that combines iconic imagery to create a commentary on politics, culture and environments. In Rizzo's words, "I invent icons to reference social and political issues such as modern imperialism, environmental pollution, government surveillance, and violence in our culture."

Additional images from the show are HERE.

Please contact Faythe Levine with additional media requests at 414. 483. 8462

Meet your Neighbor at Spackle Gallery

2008-10-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Meet Your Neighbor: work by Andrea Avery

Opening Reception: Friday, Oct. 17th 5-10pm, artist talk 7:30pm

Show Runs through November 30th

Combining her background of traditional needlework with postmodern elements of collage and appropriation,

Andrea Avery concocts playful, nonlinear narratives. Each piece represents a personal reaction to events affecting people from her hometown; and although each piece has a personal connection, Avery aims to make these stories universal through her use of material and open ended imagery. Using idealized figures and ambiguity, she explores the “complexity of human relationships, birth, procreation, and death” by presenting “recognizable imagery and everyday objects [such as] paper dolls and their clothing” so the viewer may gauge the meaning based on his or her own experiences and associations. The result is an exploration of one’s own connection and attention to community through the collection of human stories and experiences.

Meet Andrea Avery at www.ajavery.com

Spackle Gallery is located at 2674 S. Kinnickinnic Avenue, Milwaukee, in the Bay View neighborhood; gallery hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday 12-5pm. Contact info@spacklegallery.com for additional information.

Journal Sentinel Reviews

2008-09-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

The Armoury Gallery and the Green Gallery recently had their current shows reviewed for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Mary Louise Schumacher reviewed both shows for her Art City blog and for the Thursday, September 25th print edition of the Journal. To read the Armoury's review click HERE, and click HERE for the Green Gallery's review. This is what they looked like in print:

In Contour: Fall Gallery Night @ the Armoury Gallery

2008-09-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

October 17 - November 15
Opening Reception: Gallery Night, October 17th, 5 - 10pm

The Armoury Gallery is please to announce its fifth exhibition, In Contour, with an opening reception to be held Fall Gallery Night, October 17th from 5-10 pm.

In Contour features the work of Minneapolis based artist Sonja Peterson and local artists Paul Kjelland and Julia Schilling. All three artists use line, contour and silhouette to deconstruct and analyze the world around us, breaking environments and relationships down to their respective parts.

Minneapolis based artist Sonja Peterson will present a series of new and old works for the exhibition. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota, having earned her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is featured in book 77 of New American Paintings, a juried exhibition-in-print selected from over 1000 applicants.

Peterson works with large scale paper cutouts and drawings, then suspends them and sets the work against painted imagery on the wall behind. The use of silhouette implies a level of simplicity and reduction, but the complex nature of the shapes and repeating patterns, combined with the tedious process, imply a complexity that begs for consideration.

Local artist Paul Kjelland will have a new series of his mixed media, photography-based works on hand. Graduating from MIAD in 2005 with a BFA in photography, Kjelland has since worked consistently, showing with Hotcakes at Aqua Art in Miami and Art Chicago, at Milwaukee International, Walker's PointCenter for the Arts, Luckystar and others.

Kjelland's work takes a compartmentalized look at the constructed world that surrounds us. Using paper cutouts, screen printing and digital media, Kjelland takes apart our surroundings and reassembles them as a course of reflection and examination of the world around us.

Finally, Julia Schilling of the White Whale Collective will create a sight-specific installation for this opening. Julia graduated from MIAD in 2008, earning her BFA in Sculpture and minor in Writing, and has been involved in curating and exhibiting with the White Whale since it was formed this past January. She has also participated in various public art projects, including the collaboration 'Points of View' for the Riverwalk Association.

Schilling's work combines sculpture and drawing to explore landforms and methods of mapping. For this opening, her installation will employ piles, mounds, and words to address landscapes, elevation and way finding.

COOL WHITE CUBE, Paul Druecke @ The Green Gallery

2008-09-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

The Cool White Cube
Paul Druecke
Sept. 19th - Oct. 11th

Opening Reception
Sept. 19th
7-11pm
The Green Gallery
631 E Center St. 3rd floor, Milwaukee

The Cool White Cube documents the American refrigerator. The refrigerator has been called the gallery of the masses. Its clean exterior begs aesthetic consideration, while the decorated refrigerator projects a public sensibility from its domestic centrality. The Cool White Cube looks at refrigerators as found in the homes of people from a variety of backgrounds (suburban families, gallerists, film directors, chiropractors, and waiters, to name a few). Simultaneously grand and quaint, this exhibition is Druecke's most direct overlaying of art world structure and quotidian existence.

Also on view during the opening reception:
A new Video Arcade video by Xav Leplae,
Club Nutz stand-up with your hosts Scott & Tyson Reeder,
The John Riepenhoff Experience

visit www.thegreengallery.tk for more info

Hidden River Festival: Emerging Artists

2008-09-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

This coming weekend, September 19 - 21, the Hidden River Festival is happening at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts in Brookfield. Some MIGA members are participating in the Emerging Artists section of this event, including Julia Schilling, Summer Said and Marcus Wichmann of the White Whale Collective and Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber of the Armoury Gallery. Peggy Sue Dunigan wrote a short article about the Hidden River Festival in todays Shepherd Express. You can read the full text below, or by clicking HERE.

Please note, that even though it says Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber will be speaking at this event, no actual speaking engagement is scheduled.

Discovering Wisconsin Art
Art Preview By Peggy Sue Dunigan

An extraordinary collection of artists will appear throughout the Milwaukee area this weekend. In Brookfield, the third annual Hidden River Art Festival returns to the grounds of the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, from 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19, through 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. All weekend, Wisconsin artists will be highlighted in a variety of events at this family festival.

A retrospective on the second floor of the Ploch Art Gallery will feature Wisconsin artists working in multiple media. These 27 commissioned works, honoring the Governor's Award in Support of the Arts, will be exhibited for the first time, and include work from artists such as Doug Haynes, Chuck Beckwith and Phillip Odden.

Inside the Wilson Center's Dawes Studio Theater, "Emerging Artists from Wisconsin" will showcase artists who have graduated from prestigious fine-arts programs in the state. This creative vision aims to provide rising artists with an opportunity to show their artwork to fresh audiences. Partners involved with the White Whale Artist Collective, including Summer Said, Julia Schilling and Marcus Wichmann, as well as Armoury Gallery's Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber, will display their talents. On Friday afternoon, Steeber and Smith will talk about being working women, artists and gallery owners, and will speak about the dedication necessary to accomplish the task of being a creative artist and an entrepreneur in today's economic environment. A number of other emerging artists will speak at scheduled times during the festival.

Two familiar galleries import their collections of fine art to the Wilson Center's Grand Hall, while refreshments, entertainment and an activities tent outside will allow participants to discover art on a personal level. A People's Choice Award and two juried awards, Best in Show and Juror's Choice, are set to honor more than 80 Wisconsin artists. With an admission fee of $5 for adults (free for children under 10), Hidden River Art Festival provides an opportunity to explore the inside world of Wisconsin art.

The Westside Artwalk in Wauwatosa stretches from Harwood Avenue to 43rd and Vliet streets. Participating businesses exhibit unique artwork, and there will be a fund-raiser titled "Take A Seat," which will auction imaginative Adirondack chairs to benefit the reclamation of the village common area. This two-day event, on Friday, Sept. 19, 5 to 9 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 20, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., offers a creative atmosphere in which to appreciate these Milwaukee neighborhoods.

White Whale Artist Collective in Walker's Point hosts an exclusive exhibition, "Gimme Baby Robots," on Friday, Sept. 19, from 7 to 10 p.m. This traveling art collective, the brainchild of two University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate art students, Mike Rea and Dave Teng Olsen, assembles the work of more than 100 national artists. "Gimme Baby Robots" travels through numerous U.S. cities, offering affordable art shown salon-style. In addition to an auction, light refreshments will be served.

Baby Robots at the White Whale

2008-09-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
On Friday September 19th The White Whale is happy to host the artist collaborative, "Gimme Baby Robots." For one night only come and get some great art at affordable prices. This silent auction event will feature artists from around the country with their work starting at bids as low as one dollar. The Baby Robots have traveled to cities around the United States from Los Angeles to Chicago and for their final stop of the year they're dropping by the White Whale. You can learn more about Gimme Baby Robots at their website, http://gbr.siamesebirds.com.

Time: 7pm -10pm Friday the 19th
Place: 835 W National

Hope to see you there!

MIGA Radio Interview

2008-08-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

Jessica Steeber and Cassandra Smith of the Armoury Gallery were recently interviewed for Lake Effect/WUWM by Paul Kosidowski about MIGA. The interview orginally aired on August 28th, but you can listen to the whole thing HERE.

Spackle Gallery: The Flyover Report

2008-08-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

The Flyover Report: works by Annushka Peck
Opening Reception: Friday, Sept. 5th 6-10, artist talk at 7pm.
Show Runs through October 12th

Statement from Annushka:

The experience of travel is inherently a 'liminal' (i.e. threshold or transitional) state. In this state, one can often find themselves in a position of vulnerability. Yet, it is also the case that within the vulnerability that such changing circumstances create, great opportunities for growth and transcendence also can be found. When the trajectory of the event can be anticipated, or understood prior to engagement however, as is often the case with "tourist" experiences of place, the opportunity for growth becomes limited by the pre-ordained routes of travel and package excursions.

A corollary to this can be found in "armchair tourism" – an experience of 'place' derived by engagement with a mediated source, rather than a physical encounter. Such 'tourism' often occurs within the comfort of one's own home, though it may occur in any setting that offers easy familiarity, such as a hotel room television. This exploration of other cultures, places or events, provides the observer with a pre-selected viewpoint, a vantage point that is not arrived at through one's primary experience, but a secondary, pre-viewed and pre-digested understanding of the particular place, culture or event.

This body of work is based, in part, on the recent experience of traveling to and from Ankara, Turkey via Frankfurt, Germany. The images used in this series are part of a larger series of television photographs taken while experiencing an unintended layover in Frankfurt, Germany.

This series of pieces is intended to cull these different sets of experiences: the frustration of direct physical experience with the limitation of images of events and cultures one may only ever experience via mediation."

Garden Variety @ the Armoury Gallery

2008-08-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

Opening Reception: September 5th, 7-11 pm

Show Runs: Septemeber 5th - October 4th

Garden Variety features new and old pieces by Minneapolis-based artists Joseph Sinness and Erika Olsen, as well as photography and installation by Milwaukee artist River Bullock. Garden Variety attempts to examine our relationships with the physical and imaginary world that surrounds us, through cultural study, wit, quiet meditation, and heavy use of symbolic imagery.

Erika Olson

River Bullock"Apocalyptical Dolly" by Joseph Sinness

At this opening, we are going to be selling 19" x 26" limited edition, signed prints of the above image by Joseph Sinness for $30.00. If you're as excited about owning this image as we are, please email us so we can be sure to pre-order enough.
info@thearmourygallery.com

"Orla TX" Photography by Nicole Tappa

2008-08-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

Opening Reception Friday August 22nd 6-9pm

Fasten Collective

2224 S Kinnickinnic Ave. Milwaukee

"Orla, Tx", from Milwaukee artist, Nicole Tappa will be on the walls August 15th through mid September at Fasten. The collection is an eerie story of a lonesome ghost town textured by decay and vast blue skies. Join us for an opening reception August 22nd from 6-9pm.

Nicole Tappa graduated from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in 2005 with a BFA in photography. She then traveled onto Chicago. After completing one year at Columbia College Chicago's MFA program in photography she has returned. Chicago taught her one thing, that if she goes any further away, she'll start coming back.

About Orla

It's a long way to anywhere from Orla, Texas. Orla is on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line, U.S. Highway 285, and Farm Road 652, five miles southeast of Red Bluff in northwestern Reeves County. The name is Spanish for "border" and refers to the countryside around the settlement. Orla was established as a section house on the Pecos River Railroad in 1890. A post office was opened there in 1906. By 1933 Orla reported the post office, a business, and a population of ten. Its population remained at ten until after World War II, but the number of businesses increased to two in 1943. The town grew between the late 1940s and the 1950s, the population to forty and then to sixty, and the number of businesses to three. In the mid-1960s Orla became a rural oil supply center. By the end of the decade its population had reached 250, and it had twelve businesses. From 1970 through 2000 its population was reported at 183, and it had variously anywhere from one to sixteen businesses. In 1990 Orla still supplied equipment for production in nearby Permian Basin oilfields. In 2005, its population stood at 2.

"What You Get When You Cross...": Friday, August 15 @ MAM

2008-08-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

Along with posting strictly MIGA gallery events, we've decided to post events happening in Milwaukee that we are involved in, want to support or just think are great events that everyone should go to. With that in mind, we encourage everyone to attend the following event:

Milwaukee artists team up for the latest Cedar Block event, in the tradition of "The Ramirez Box" and "Three Degrees of Francis Bacon", this time in tribute to Gilbert & George. A film program, The Midnight Show, and special interactive exhibits round out the exhibit, with live DJ's, free appetizers, and a cash bar. The GILBERT & GEORGE exhibition will be open to all until 11PM. Friday, August 15 from 8:00pm - midnight. Just $7 general admission, $5 MAM members. www.cedarblock.com

Armoury gallery owners and local artists, Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber will be showing a collaborative piece at this event.

Spackle Gallery Opening: August 1st

2008-07-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

Spackle Gallery proudly presents Redefining Pattern, an exhibition featuring fashion, prints and paintings by Milwaukee based artists Alexander Kain, Daniel David Kaiser and Steve
Sorrentino. This show opens Friday, August 1st with an artists' reception from 6-10 pm featuring hair designs by Lara Haefele and music by DJ Macabre. Show runs through August 31st. Spackle Gallery is located at 2674 S. Kinnickinnic Avenue, Milwaukee in the Bay View neighborhood.

Fashion is dominated by different forms of pattern. Surface pattern, pattern in construction, the pattern of trends and pattern in display. Within these patterns of fashion, society has created a standard of beauty and design unique to our time, place, and modern culture. To push these standards, these artists have deviated from and redefined the idea of fashion and pattern to create new, fresh and progressive designs and concepts. Kain creates unique and custom fashions for dolls pushing ideas of design and collection on both an intimate and tangible scale. Kaiser and Sorrentino mirror themes of fashion, pattern, model, and beauty in their work to celebrate and criticize the contemporary fashion industry and to comment on the relationship between the pattern and the model by integrating and dissolving them into each other. These artists demonstrate both how art influences fashion and how fashion influences art.

Paper Boat Gallery Opening: Friday, August 1st

2008-07-31T09:08:00.001-07:00

We are so very excited to welcome Providence based artists Leif Goldberg and Erin Rosenthal who are driving across country to install their show and also share their music with us at the opening party Friday night. Please swing by to check out the event, all are http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifwelcome. Music will be outside weather (and neighbors) permitting.

The event will start at 7pm and the music will begin around 8:30 with Leif & Erin's band CRUDE HILL, then Milwaukee based WOODEN ROBOT will play a short set. We will be passing the hat to assist with gas money for the artists.

Hope to see you.......

P.S. This may be Wooden Robot's last show with Eilis the accordion player for quite some time. Come send her off with love....

x, the Paper Boat Ladies

"Fledgling Galleries Band Together"

2008-07-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel art critic Mary Louise Schumacher just posted a sneak peek of tomorrows cue section featuring a front cover story about MIGA! You can read (and comment) her article online HERE.

Also check out the interactive Gallery Night & Day page where Milwaukee residents were asked to call in with their favorite pick for Gallery Night shows. MIGA founder Jessica Steeber gives a shout out to Paper Boat and local filmmaker Andrew Swant hollers at the Armoury and Green Gallery! Check it out it's techonology at its finest!

"Off the Beaten Path"

2008-07-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

Onmilwaukee.com writer Mollie Butler wrote a great article "Off the Beaten Path" about the small galleries in Milwaukee and their struggles to stay open. MIGA and many of it's galleries were mentioned in the article HERE.

Bill Daniel at Paper Boat Gallery

2008-07-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

Paper Boat presents: "Sunset Scavenger"
Work by Bill Daniel
Curated by Faythe Levine
Summer Gallery Night, July 25th 7-11pm

9PM Enjoy a special FREE screening of "Who Is Bozo Texino?" a documentary film by Bill Daniel (outside weather permitting)

"Sailvan in Arizona" 2004
Sunset Scavenger is a project supported by Creative Capital Foundation.

Paper Boat is pleased to be showing the varied work of artist, filmmaker and photographer Bill Daniel. "Sunset Scavenger" will feature a variety of wall based work, based around Daniel's most recent romance with houseboat culture. There will be mural-sized Xerox blow-ups which are a way to turn the imagery into wheat-pasteable graffiti, and some new digital murals, as well as some traditional b/w photography.

Also available throughout the duration of the exhibit will be Daniel's new book "Mostly True" published by Microcosm, a companion to his documentary "Who is Bozo Texino?

"Who Is Bozo Texino?"
The secret history of hobo graffiti
Directed, photographed, edited by Bill Daniel
2005, 56 min, B/W, 16mm and Super 8, mastered on Digibeta NTSC

Shot on freight hopping trips across the wild West and 16 years in the making, this is the mostly-factual cinematic account of the epic search and unlikely discovery of hobohemia's most legendary boxcar artist.

Full Press Release HERE
Media Contact: Faythe Levine (414) 483-8462
paperboatboutique@gmail.com

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK:
Paper Boat Gallery 2375 S. Howell Ave Milwaukee, WI 53207
www.paperboatboutique.com

THE GREEN GALLERY

2008-07-22T22:06:00.001-07:00

"We Are All Always Moving"
a mixed media installation

"I would have told them if I could"
A book of short stories and illustrations

a collaboration of hands.
Between Sarah Luther and Joe Riepenhoff

opening reception july 25th 7:00pm - 11:00am
Gallery Located @ 631 E Center 3B

LA Based Artist Linda Lay has conducted an interview with Joe and Sarah on their up coming show
check it out on her fabulous web page
@ www.LINDALAY.net
http://www.lindalay.net/interview.htm

Leah Kwarciany at Fasten Collective

2008-07-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Join us Friday July 25th from 6-9pm for a reception for "Stitched, Painted and Put on Display: Drama Rama" work by Leah Kwarciany at Fasten Collective, 2224 S Kinnickinnic Ave, in Bayview. The artist will be in attendance, and refreshments will be served.

This Southeastern Wisconsin native has won several scholarships and awards for her multi-media work, and has shown in several exhibitions, including the current show in the Schneider Gallery in UW Stevens Point, where she currently studies. The body of work showing this month at the Fasten Gallery includes bold canvases adorned with mashed-up textiles, glitter, farm animals, iconic imagery, and bright synthetic color.

Hidden Exposure @ the Armoury Gallery

2008-07-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Armoury Gallery is pleased to announce Hidden Exposure, the third exhibition for the new gallery, with an opening reception to be held Summer Gallery Night, July 25th, from 5-10pm.

Hidden Exposure includes works by three artists, Jackie Hoving (philadelphia), AOM III (madison) and Allison Heape (mke), all using decoration and distortion in their works to expose elements of life often looked over. Using this method of disguise to contradict first impressions and seemingly pleasant compositions, an honest and somewhat cynical message about contemporary society can be found.

Jackie Hoving

AOM III

MIGA postcard

2008-07-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is the postcard we've created for the upcoming Summer Gallery Night. This is the first venture for MIGA and hopefully there will be much more to follow.

Each MIGA gallery will have access to this blog and the opportunity to post their gallery related events and images. You can also get more information at our website. http://www.migaonline.com/