Wisconsin Triennial Brochure 2019
Exhibition brochure for the 2019 Wisconsin Triennial
Exhibition brochure for the 2019 Wisconsin Triennial
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WISCONSIN TRIENNIAL <strong>2019</strong><br />
An exhibition of contemporary art from across the state<br />
Oct 19, <strong>2019</strong> – Feb 16, 2020
<strong>Wisconsin</strong> is home to a vibrant, diverse art community that creates in every medium and<br />
touches every corner of our state. In the <strong>2019</strong> <strong>Wisconsin</strong> <strong>Triennial</strong>, the Madison Museum of<br />
Contemporary Art celebrates this ever-evolving contemporary art scene with an exhibition<br />
that reflects the dedication and sophistication of <strong>Wisconsin</strong>’s artists. The works presented<br />
are both timely and timeless, bringing into view the ideas, processes, and content that<br />
artists are exploring today.<br />
CONTENTS<br />
Saif Alsaegh 1<br />
John Himmelfarb 3<br />
Stephen Perkins 6<br />
Ariana Vaeth 8<br />
Emily Arthur 1<br />
John Hitchcock 3<br />
Jeffrey Repko 6<br />
Leslie Vansen 8<br />
Tom Berenz 1<br />
Jon Horvath 4<br />
Suzanne Rose 6<br />
Shane Walsh 9<br />
Timothy Brenner 1<br />
Chele Isaac 4<br />
Andy Rubin 6<br />
Della Wells 9<br />
Jennifer Bucheit 2<br />
Tom Jones 4<br />
Dane Schumacher 7<br />
Ed Erdmann 2<br />
Tomiko Jones 4<br />
Peter Schwei 7<br />
Marianne Fairbanks 2<br />
Diane Levesque 5<br />
Anders Shafer 7<br />
Ben Grant 2<br />
Gina Litherland 5<br />
Pranav Sood 7<br />
Rachael Griffin 3<br />
Dakota Mace 5<br />
Spatula&Barcode 8<br />
Helen Hawley 3<br />
Francisco Mora 5<br />
SPOOKY BOOBS 8
SAIF ALSAEGH MILWAUKEE<br />
1991 (video still), 2018 • 11:55 minutes • Courtesy of the artist<br />
In 2011, Saif Alsaegh moved from Iraq to the United States, leaving behind<br />
the endless violence, deafening explosions, and constant fear of death<br />
that plagued everyday life in Baghdad. Through the medium of video, he<br />
unravels his memories of war and explores the strange tranquility of his life in<br />
<strong>Wisconsin</strong>. His experimental style of narration is most poignant in 1991, a video<br />
featuring a phone conversation between the artist and his mother, Bushra, an<br />
Iraqi immigrant currently living in Turkey. The film captures footage of Alsaegh<br />
cooking and engaging in other routine activities while video chatting with<br />
his mom, who tells the story of his birth, in 1991, in the midst of the Gulf War.<br />
Bringing together the virtual landscape of the phone, the bucolic landscape<br />
of <strong>Wisconsin</strong>, and the fragmented landscape of memory, Alsaegh presents<br />
a poetic meditation on war, displacement, separation, and familial love.<br />
EMILY ARTHUR MADISON<br />
Cherokee by Blood, 2018 • Aspen wood, screenprint, cast bronze, and<br />
dried silk • Courtesy of the artist<br />
For Cherokee by Blood, Emily Arthur collected dead songbirds in collaboration<br />
with a zoology lab and then cast the birds in bronze. The bronze birds<br />
are delicately shrouded in silk organza and placed in wooden boxes — a<br />
presentation reminiscent of a viewing at a funeral. Printed on the silk is text<br />
from a series of documents dating from 1906 to 1910 that contain interviews<br />
of over 125,000 people who applied to the US Court of Claims in an effort to<br />
retain their tribal enrollment within the Cherokee Nation. Traumatic accounts<br />
of removal of Cherokee peoples by the government can be read on the silk<br />
that cradles the dead birds, placing environmental destruction and Cherokee<br />
displacement at the forefront of Arthur’s work.<br />
TOM BERENZ MILWAUKEE<br />
Drowning in a Bathtub, 2018 • Acrylic and oil on canvas, 72 x 94 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
Worried about the potential for disaster ruining a perfect moment, Tom Berenz<br />
builds up paint on the canvas into what he calls “piles of floating information,”<br />
which resemble crashes and shattered worlds. In Drowning in a Bathtub, diluted,<br />
watery lines and the black-and-white tiled floor provide a sense of space, while<br />
the jumble of fleshy limbs and abstract shapes lend a sense of unease. Drawing<br />
the viewer in with bright pinks and blues, the angst filled bathtub overflows<br />
off the bottom edge of the painting, opening up the image for personal<br />
introspection and interpretation.<br />
TIMOTHY BRENNER MADISON<br />
Purple and Yellow Still Life, 2018 • Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 8 inches •<br />
Courtesy of Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee<br />
Timothy Brenner’s still life paintings are comprised of layers upon layers of<br />
acrylic paint that result in an incredibly tactile and textured composition. Brenner<br />
developed a visual iconography in which he paints a series of reoccurring icons,<br />
symbols, and objects from his life in various environments and color combinations.<br />
For his series of decorative planters, Brenner fastidiously replicated the same<br />
composition in several iterations. The completed paintings were then repainted on<br />
a smaller scale for inclusion in yet another still life: Still Life Shelf. Extending his selfreferential<br />
iconography even further, Brenner reconstructs the shelf depicted in the<br />
painting as a three-dimensional object, replete with hand-painted wood grain, on<br />
which a selection of the physical paintings are then displayed.<br />
1
JENNIFER BUCHEIT MADISON<br />
100%, from the series Again & Again: A Reflection on Consumer Culture, 2017 •<br />
Archival pigment print on post-consumer substrate, 17 x 15 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
Jennifer Bucheit’s photographic series Again & Again: A Reflection on Consumer<br />
Culture addresses the rise of American consumerism and the inordinate amount<br />
of paper waste discarded in landfills — with <strong>Wisconsin</strong> being the number<br />
one paper producer in the world. Mindful of the excess waste, Bucheit began<br />
collecting her family’s paper trash, which she then carefully deconstructed and<br />
photographed in a still life setting. The images of the paper packaging were then<br />
digitally compiled and printed back onto one side of the original packaging —<br />
reinforcing the themes of repetition, reuse, and recycling. From shopping bags<br />
to takeout cartons, the resulting works of art reveal our irreverent consumption<br />
while unveiling the potential for turning the disposable into the admired.<br />
ED ERDMANN MENOMONIE<br />
Dismas, 2017 • Soil collected from the banks of Red Cedar River on canvas,<br />
24 x 24 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Growing up on a farm in the Mississippi Valley, Erdmann developed a profound<br />
respect for the land. As an artist, the physical landscape informed a series of<br />
paintings that use natural elements — dirt, sediment, and sticks collected from<br />
the Red Cedar and Mississippi rivers — to generate works of art that are a literal<br />
manifestation of his environment. Highlighting the natural rhythms, lines, and layers<br />
produced by water eroding soil, Erdmann creates paintings from dirt and sediment<br />
that are part land art, part color field painting. When the resulting work is placed<br />
on a gallery wall, it serves as a poignant reminder to pause and appreciate the<br />
inherent beauty of the natural world.<br />
MARIANNE FAIRBANKS MADISON<br />
Heart of Being 3, 2018 • Hand woven on a digital loom (TC-1) tencel, acrylic,<br />
nylon, wool, 41 x 21 x 4 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Marianne Fairbanks stretches textiles to their formal and conceptual limits.<br />
Heart of Being 3 is a jacquard weaving with an eye-catching, fluorescent-pink<br />
backside that is presented as the front. A rectangular section is cut out from<br />
the middle of the piece and flops forward toward the viewer, revealing part of<br />
the metallic silver frontside. In jacquard textiles, the design is woven into the<br />
fabric itself rather than printed or embroidered on top of it, which means that<br />
the pattern is created together with the cloth: the image thus becomes the<br />
object, and the object is the image. Fairbanks emphasizes the unique material<br />
structure of jacquard by weaving into her piece the actual patterns that<br />
comprise the visual language of weaving — the crisscrossing of intersecting<br />
threads at a 90-degree angle. Fairbanks thus presents us with a striking<br />
and self-reflexive fabric: a weaving about weaving.<br />
BEN GRANT MILWAUKEE<br />
Untitled 115, 2016 • Acrylic, automotive paint, ball point pen, colored pencil,<br />
enamel, graphite, oil, and spray paint on canvas over panel, 47 x 47 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist and Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee<br />
Ben Grant combs through the history of art to recover techniques and<br />
processes that have long been forgotten. He reworks these painterly oddities into<br />
contemporary compositions that he describes as “on the edge of falling apart.”<br />
The layering of technique and media — from ball point pen to automotive paint<br />
— results in an intricately patterned composition that is visually stimulating.<br />
Grant’s formal explorations hint at representation without completely giving way<br />
to abstraction, inviting the viewer in for a closer look. For Grant, this interactive<br />
inquiry is essential to his practice as it validates these complex, layered paintings<br />
that can be just as engaging as a representational, narrative composition.<br />
2
RACHAEL GRIFFIN MADISON<br />
Plum, 2016 • Monotype on paper, 44 x 29 1/2 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Through the time-intensive process of reductive monotype, Rachael Griffin uses<br />
the subject of food to examine appetites — whether a taste for a particular food<br />
or a more sensual craving. Curious where and when these associations are made<br />
in our brains, she explores several of the universal visual triggers that elicit our<br />
most primal desires. In Plum, Griffin renders a bright, juicy plum with a giant<br />
bite taken out of it and in Cherry an impossibly tall slice of cherry pie whets our<br />
appetite. Fleshy and body-like, her images invoke sensations or memories that<br />
are subconscious and inescapable.<br />
HELEN HAWLEY MADISON<br />
In Time, Its Flow, <strong>2019</strong> • Video installation, single projection with sound,<br />
paper screen, steel frame, 5:02 minutes • Sound design by Page Campbell and<br />
Helen Hawley • This project was supported by a Foundation for Contemporary<br />
Arts Emergency Grant • Image courtesy of the artist<br />
In Time, Its Flow is a curvilinear aluminum sculpture that both encloses and serves<br />
as a projection surface for artist Helen Hawley’s video animation. Using only water,<br />
the artist brushes lines across a slate slab to create a hand-drawn animation. As<br />
each new mark appears, another evaporates just as quickly, calling attention to<br />
both the passage of time and the transient nature of that which is man-made.<br />
Intentionally choosing materials that are intangible — evaporating water and<br />
vanishing time — Hawley subtly gestures to our own impermanence.<br />
JOHN HIMMELFARB SPRING GREEN<br />
Leader, 2017 • Maple veneer plywood, 96 x 33 x 14 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
John Himmelfarb has always been interested in the symbols and markmaking<br />
that humans use to communicate ideas — from hieroglyphics to more<br />
contemporary pictographs. From his early childhood growing up in Chicago,<br />
he recalls walking through Chinatown with his parents, fascinated by the<br />
pictorial language on commercial signs and storefronts. His admiration for<br />
graphic forms can be seen in his new series of plywood sculptures, which are<br />
based on a geometric vocabulary of squares and rectangles. He begins by<br />
hand-sketching the designs on graph paper using only straight lines and right<br />
angles, and then materializes them in wood using a CNC router. Part human,<br />
part architectural, the resulting sculptures oscillate between figuration and<br />
abstraction to suggest forms that are both playful and symbolic.<br />
JOHN HITCHCOCK MADISON<br />
Bury the Hatchet, <strong>2019</strong> • Multimedia sound installation, dimensions variable •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
John Hitchcock’s Bury the Hatchet installation explores the history of the<br />
Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma through the images and sounds of the American<br />
Frontier. This multimedia work layers soundscapes of steel guitar, cello, clarinet,<br />
and accordion with recordings of Hitchcock’s grandfather Saukwaukee John<br />
Dussome Reid (Kiowa) telling stories of “the old days on the southern plains.”<br />
Hitchcock summons the land, language, and visual symbols of the Great Plains<br />
— the focal point for Plains tribal culture — while challenging the dominantly<br />
Western narrative of the written word. The resulting installation presents an<br />
indigenous view of oral history as passed on from generation to generation<br />
through storytelling. Viewers are invited to engage with the installation and<br />
activate the sound elements while occupying the dedicated space for the work.<br />
3
JON HORVATH WAUKESHA<br />
Stray, from the series This Is Bliss, 2016 • Archival pigment print<br />
24 x 30 inches • Courtesy of the artist and Alice Wilds Gallery, Milwaukee<br />
Jon Horvath’s narrative project This Is Bliss investigates the roadside geography<br />
and culture of the rural Idaho town of Bliss. The town is historically significant<br />
due to its positioning on the Oregon Trail, but sadly Bliss reached its peak in the<br />
mid-20th century when Interstate-84 was constructed and vehicular traffic was<br />
redirected away from the once thriving community. This Is Bliss investigates the<br />
complex booms and busts of a small town, while reflecting its humanity and the<br />
complicated, romantic ideals of the American West.<br />
CHELE ISAAC MADISON<br />
You were invented to manipulate, <strong>2019</strong> • Installation with single-channel video,<br />
sculpture, sound, and scent, dimensions variable • Courtesy of the artist •<br />
Video in collaboration with Jack Kellogg<br />
Video footage, written prose, atmospheric sound, scent, and sculpture come<br />
together to create an immersive environment in Chele Isaac’s installation, You<br />
were invented to manipulate. Isaac mobilizes the prose within her video to<br />
interrogate issues of control, particularly to question who is in control of our<br />
democracy. By deploying language and image to confuse rather than clarify,<br />
she illuminates the fractured nature of information and the subjectivity of<br />
truth within our current political landscape. Working intuitively, Isaac activates<br />
all of our senses and challenges us to enter into a space, both physically and<br />
emotionally, that prioritizes free association, ambiguity, and the unknown<br />
over any definitive answer or didactic message.<br />
TOM JONES MADISON<br />
Payton Grace, from the series Strong Unrelenting Spirits, 2017 •<br />
Archival pigment print and beads, 25 x 20 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Tom Jones has been photographing his tribe, the Ho-Chunk Nation of<br />
<strong>Wisconsin</strong>, for the past 19 years. Part of an ongoing photographic essay on<br />
the contemporary life of his tribe, Jones uses the Native American tradition of<br />
beadworking that is typically reserved for clothing to hand-stitch floral designs<br />
onto the surface of his photographs. For Jones, the resulting beadwork, which<br />
envelops and adorns his figures, is a metaphor for his Ho-Chunk ancestors and<br />
their spirits. The series, Strong Unrelenting Spirits, enriches the art historical<br />
genre of portraiture and provides visibility to a nation of people who are<br />
often left out of prevailing societal narratives.<br />
TOMIKO JONES MADISON<br />
Hatsubon, 2016 • Mixed media installation, dimensions variable •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
Tomiko Jones explores cultural landscapes and the ways in which our relationship<br />
to the land shapes our identities and defines our sense of place. In Hatsubon,<br />
a memorial to her father, Jones creates an installation with photographs of<br />
three bodies of water that have familial significance: the Monongahela River<br />
in Pennsylvania where her father grew up; the waters surrounding Big Island,<br />
Hawaii, her mother’s birthplace and the site of her father’s burial; and the Pacific<br />
Coast of California, where her parents met and Jones was born. Another series of<br />
photographs on silk picture the artist, her mother, and her sister as they perform<br />
the Japanese Buddhist ceremony of hatsubon, marking the first anniversary<br />
of a loved one’s death — the three women wade into the sea to release a small<br />
bamboo boat into the vast expanse of water. Hatsubon lies within the liminal<br />
space between image and object, performance and ritual, life and death.<br />
4
DIANE LEVESQUE KENOSHA<br />
Dancing Bear and Savoyard, from The Penny Dreadful Project, 2018 •<br />
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 40 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Diane Levesque’s ongoing series of paintings and drawings, The Penny Dreadful<br />
Project, reinterprets themes depicted in Staffordshire figurines produced<br />
between 1810 and 1835. These popular collectibles portrayed idealized<br />
pastimes as well as disturbing and often violent contemporaneous events<br />
from infamous murders to public hangings. Despite this, or perhaps because<br />
of it, the figurines were acquired as decorative household items. These themes<br />
also corresponded to what could be read in “penny dreadfuls,” popular serial<br />
literature from the same era with sensational storylines. With bold color and<br />
energetic brushstrokes, Levesque heightens the implied violence and sexuality<br />
of the stories, transforming the decorative motifs of the Victorian era into social<br />
commentary that is unsettling yet alluring.<br />
GINA LITHERLAND CEDARBURG<br />
Yggdrasil, 2018 • Oil on panel, 20 x 40 inches • Courtesy of the artist and<br />
Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago<br />
Gina Litherland’s immaculately rendered paintings reference the artistic<br />
tradition of magic realism and the narrative plotlines found in folktales.<br />
Litherland creates her own mythologies in her wood panel paintings, twisting<br />
familiar iconographies and storylines into new realms of the uncanny where<br />
young girls befriend tigers and join packs of dogs howling at the moon. In her<br />
painting Yggdrasil, Litherland illustrates the Tree of Life from Norse Mythology,<br />
the three “Norns” (female beings who control the fate of both gods and<br />
humans) appear as girls eerily floating beneath the tree, lit from below, toying<br />
with their environment. Litherland imbues her mystical worlds with tales of<br />
female empowerment, making them places where young girls and women<br />
have immense power and magic over their incongruous surroundings.<br />
DAKOTA MACE MADISON<br />
Na’ashch’áá’ I, 2018 • Cyanotype/digital media on paper, 24 x 24 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
Dakota Mace is a Diné (Navajo) artist who reinterprets the symbolic abstractions<br />
of Diné creation stories, cosmologies, and social structures. Mace uses a<br />
combination of traditional and nontraditional materials, taking Diné visual culture<br />
and design out of the realm of weaving and into printmaking and photography.<br />
Subverting expectations of Diné designs as utilitarian or decorative objects, Mace<br />
transforms and preserves these traditions while bringing them firmly into the<br />
fine art realm, engaging in an act of cultural reclamation. The abstracted symbol<br />
of Na’ashjéii Asdzáá (Spider Woman) is the most prevalent motif seen in Mace’s<br />
designs and one of the most important deities in the Diné Bahané (creation story)<br />
as she was the first to weave her web of the universe while spreading Hózhó<br />
Náhásdlíí’ (beauty way) teachings of balance within the mind, body, and soul.<br />
Mace affirms the importance of the cultural signifiers while embracing her belief<br />
of hajisí dígíí dahiistłó biihji nilłx (we weave what we see).<br />
FRANCISCO MORA FOX POINT<br />
Travesía en la Panza de un Burro (Voyage in a Donkey’s Belly), 2018 •<br />
Graphite on paper, 12 x 16 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Francisco Mora’s drawings reveal the imaginary world of his dreams. Playing with<br />
scale, he transforms humans into animals and back again, sending his fantastical<br />
characters on journeys through a mysterious jungle. Born and raised in Mexico City,<br />
Mora draws on the visual traditions of Mexican surrealism in which Mexican artists<br />
merged their own histories and folklore with the ideas that had defined surrealism<br />
throughout Europe. The resulting works of art transformed and expanded the<br />
movement through new stylistic innovations and cultural references. Mora’s body<br />
of work catalogues his imagination, in which a giant child, a wizard, a woman<br />
traveling inside of a donkey’s stomach, a fish-man, and a bird-man all intersect<br />
in a visionary, hand-penciled world.<br />
5
STEPHEN PERKINS MADISON<br />
Latin American Art and the Decolonial Turn (1963–2018): Memories of<br />
Underdevelopment Revisited, <strong>2019</strong> • Mixed media printed matter, dimensions<br />
variable • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Stephen Perkins is an avid collector of printed works made by artists from<br />
around the world. He proposes curating as a form of art, choosing a thematic<br />
selection of works from his personal collection and presenting them as a<br />
group in a salon-style display. Using his home as an informal gallery space,<br />
Perkins has organized several installations derived from his archive of<br />
materials, which enables him to re-animate older works within new thematic<br />
contexts. This practice is in keeping with his interest in collecting work by<br />
international artists who operate within alternative artistic milieus and explore<br />
new ways of exhibiting. Much like Perkins challenges the traditional museum<br />
model, the pieces he includes in this installation challenge dominant narratives<br />
about art and culture. They present a counter-narrative to the colonial rhetoric<br />
of development that framed artistic practices and discourses across Latin<br />
America between the early 1960s and the mid-1980s.<br />
JEFFREY REPKO MADISON<br />
Fermata, 2018 • Acrylic, paint, and wood, 60 x 36 x 60 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
Jeffrey Repko was born in Pittsburgh right after the fall of the steel industry.<br />
His large-scale sculptures channel the post-industrial narratives of his<br />
hometown to convey notions of assembly and reconstruction. Merging his<br />
interest in machinery with his childhood fascination with plastic toys, Repko<br />
pairs bright colors with modular, building-block forms. In Fermata, Repko uses<br />
the bright pinks, lavenders, and yellows of toys from his childhood to inspire<br />
creative play and youthful optimism.<br />
SUZANNE ROSE FORESTVILLE<br />
45º9'35" N 87º14'10'W" from the series Blind Spot, <strong>2019</strong> • Archival pigment<br />
print, 23 x 34.5 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Suzanne Rose’s Blind Spot series uses photographic techniques and styles directly<br />
influenced by photography of the 19th century by artists like Carleton Watkins<br />
and Timothy H. O’Sullivan, to explore natural landscapes altered by humankind.<br />
Grand, impressive trees cut through with telephone lines, branches shorn off trees,<br />
root systems laid bare are all shown in moonlight, twilight, or the pre-dawn light.<br />
The title of each work in this series is named for the GPS coordinates where the<br />
image was taken, effectively contrasting the modern mapping system with the<br />
19th-century aesthetic Rose embraces. Shaped vignettes are used to detail Rose’s<br />
observations of the rural Midwest that are lushly detailed and rich in contrast.<br />
ANDY RUBIN MADISON<br />
Love in Balance, 2018 • Collage and monotype, 18 x 24 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
Andy Rubin’s etchings incorporate the poetic images from La sculpture<br />
grecque au Musée du Louvre, a 1937 art book documenting Greek sculpture<br />
from the collection of the Louvre Museum in Paris. In Love in Balance, the<br />
sculpture of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, is depicted alongside<br />
a sculpture that has been masked by a blue monoprint that only reveals the<br />
image through a stack of geological forms. For Rubin, these rock towers<br />
represent our earthly knowledge, an accumulation of facts that build up over<br />
time. Not perfect, nor linear, the information we discover as a society shifts<br />
and is called into question as time passes. What remains is the eternal truth —<br />
the love that unites, repairs, and balances out all the foibles of humankind.<br />
6
DANE SCHUMACHER GREEN BAY<br />
Self-Taught, 2018 • Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Twenty-one-year-old Dane Schumacher insisted on making art before he<br />
even turned two. As he continues into adulthood passionately honing his<br />
innate talent, he simultaneously confronts a chorus of criticism about the<br />
impracticalities of his career choice. The artist fleshes out his anxieties about<br />
his future in each of his immaculately detailed self-portraits. In Self-Taught, he<br />
paints himself donning a smock and a pair of checkered Vans while diligently<br />
drawing pictures with Crayola markers. Having outgrown the childhood art table<br />
where he sits, the artist nevertheless appears happily absorbed in this whimsical<br />
depiction of the childlike imagination and creativity he associates with pursing<br />
an art career. By contrast, Disillusioned presents Schumacher’s hypothetical<br />
portrait of himself with a traditional nine-to-five career: absentmindedly holding<br />
a floppy stuffed animal puppet in one of his heavily veined hands, the artist’s<br />
expression is one of pure disenchantment.<br />
PETER SCHWEI DODGEVILLE<br />
In the Landscape, 2010–<strong>2019</strong> • Oil and water interactions, acrylic, pencil, oil,<br />
and colored pencil on canvas, 98 x 100 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Peter Schwei’s monumental canvas overwhelms the senses with its sheer scale,<br />
intricate level of detail, and shifting sense of perspective. In monochromatic<br />
tones of gray, he depicts a forested landscape where trees tower over thick<br />
tangles of underbrush. Rather than creating his composition with brushed<br />
lines, Schwei achieves form, tonal variation, and texture by facilitating chance<br />
interactions between water and oil-based mixtures. Working with a small<br />
section of the unstretched canvas, he pools water onto its surface and then<br />
applies drops of oil paint combined with different liquid agents. The mixture<br />
disperses rapidly, organizing itself into dizzying patterns that dry onto the<br />
canvas as the water evaporates. The result is not only a landscape, but a<br />
physical record of how natural elements in the world interact with one another.<br />
Tying together image and process, Schwei points to the infinite complexity<br />
and profound beauty of the world around us.<br />
ANDERS SHAFER EAU CLAIRE<br />
Childhood of Chaïm Soutine, 2016–<strong>2019</strong> • Acrylic on paper, 22 x 29 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist<br />
Utilizing the concept of a storyboard, Anders Shafer visually documents the<br />
lives of the artists he admires and those that influence his artistic practice. Artist<br />
and historian, Shafer creates what he calls “immersion” paintings in which he<br />
conducts in-depth research into an artist’s life and then reinterprets the historical<br />
narrative though his own creative vision. In Childhood of Chaïm Soutine, Shafer<br />
paints the famous artist revered for his unique form of Expressionism — one<br />
that served as the precursor to Abstract Expressionism. Shafer’s work not only<br />
harnesses the gestural, individualized style of Soutine, but recounts the incredible<br />
history of the French artist’s life and art.<br />
PRANAV SOOD MADISON<br />
Who is She?, 2018 • Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 48 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
and René Heiden<br />
Pranav Sood’s intricate, pattern-heavy paintings draw on the artist’s personal<br />
relationships. Influenced by Indian, Persian, and Egyptian art, Sood emphasizes<br />
the flatness of the canvas while employing bold lines, strong profiles, and<br />
symbolic motifs. The artist also references op art in his work and each of the<br />
figures in his fantastical compositions inhabit a veritable wonderland of vibrant<br />
color, whimsy, and a surreal graphic sense of space. These works tell the story of<br />
a quest for love between a young couple as they embark on the journey toward<br />
adulthood and leave their homes behind. Sood complicates the cultural norms<br />
experienced in his native India, challenging expectations on how love should<br />
be formed and with whom. The vibrating patterns and repetitive geometric<br />
vocabulary of these works investigate visual language across cultures while<br />
addressing the universal quest for love.<br />
7
SPATULA&BARCODE MADISON<br />
Recipe Box, <strong>2019</strong> • Performance and installation, times, dates, and dimensions<br />
variable • Courtesy of the artists<br />
A collaborative duo comprised of artists Laurie Beth Clark and Michael Peterson,<br />
Spatula&Barcode extend artmaking into the realm of daily experience, where<br />
human interactions are themselves the work of art. With the goal of bringing<br />
people together to share stories and spark conversations, their art often takes<br />
the form of food-based events. Recipe Box, their project for the <strong>Triennial</strong>, is<br />
comprised of hundreds of handwritten index cards that record generations<br />
of their families’ heirloom recipes. Presenting their personal archive of family<br />
recipes, Spatula&Barcode ask us to consider how memory, history, and culture<br />
are both preserved and understood through various foodways. They take this<br />
idea one step further, inviting community members to attend and contribute to<br />
hosted potluck dinners in MMoCA’s lobby — a series of “performances” that aim<br />
to foster human connection through the actual consumption of culture.<br />
SPOOKY BOOBS MADISON<br />
You Have the Right to Remain a .: 8008069 Aggressive, 2018 •<br />
Digital print, 24 x 18 inches • Courtesy of the artists<br />
An artist collective formed by Amy Cannestra, Myszka Lewis, and Maggie<br />
Snyder, SPOOKY BOOBS (SB) is a collaborative effort that uses art, language,<br />
and design to re-appropriate sexist and misogynistic language often leveled<br />
against women. SB uses words that are often deployed as weapons to diminish,<br />
minimize, and shame women, and integrates them into the designs of innocuous<br />
wallpaper, such as in their series, The Patterns’ Vicious Influence. The series<br />
explores how these accusations (bossy, high-maintenance, crazy), oversaturate<br />
our lexicon to the point of becoming unnoticeable. Many of the same words are<br />
used in SB’s series You Have the Right to Remain a , which visualizes how<br />
hostile language is used to actively subjugate those not adhering to patriarchal<br />
language. People are “arrested” for their behavior and given a corresponding<br />
label (aggressive, bossy, frigid), in which SB seeks to validate our behaviors in<br />
spite of these labels.<br />
ARIANA VAETH SHOREWOOD<br />
Midnight Delight, 2018 • Oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
Ariana Vaeth’s large-scale, autobiographical paintings chronicle relationships<br />
in the artist’s life. Capturing seemingly ordinary moments between friends —<br />
watching television, chatting on the couch — Vaeth infuses each snapshot with<br />
a heightened sense of drama. Placing herself within the composition, Vaeth<br />
is able to occupy the dual role of creator and participant, positioned to take<br />
part in the everyday drama of the scene around her. In her work Caitlyn Cold<br />
Day, Vaeth directly stares at the viewer while wearing a t-shirt featuring an<br />
image of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Confronting the audience subverts any<br />
societal expectations of a traditionally demure female subject or her role as an<br />
object to be admired, as in the famous work worn by the artist. Vaeth is able to<br />
seize a feminist perspective on the domestic interior painting, while directing<br />
and capturing our gaze.<br />
LESLIE VANSEN MILWAUKEE<br />
Crwth, 2017 • Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
The formal elements of color, surface, space, and movement play strongly in Leslie<br />
Vansen’s abstract paintings. Like labyrinthine pathways, layers of swirling and<br />
twisting lines engulf her canvas, hinting at the artist’s interest in the movement<br />
of people through space. However, rather than representing a single moment or<br />
identifiable action, her paintings instead express the accumulation of multiple,<br />
repeated actions across place and time — the residue of human activity on the urban<br />
landscape. This notion is reinforced by her methodical application of paint, which is<br />
itself a study in duration, movement, repetition, and accumulation as she overlaps<br />
and intersperses multiple layers of painted acrylic lines and tape. Although Vansen<br />
looks to her everyday surroundings for inspiration, her paintings are suggestive<br />
rather than illustrative, describing through abstraction the ineffability of time,<br />
memory, and bodily experience.<br />
8
SHANE WALSH MILWAUKEE<br />
Xpressor 3, 2016 • Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 58 inches • Courtesy of the artist<br />
and The Alice Wilds Gallery, Milwaukee and Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York<br />
While large in scale, Shane Walsh’s paintings start out as small-scale collages<br />
constructed from photocopies of various marks and shapes he collects. He<br />
then fastidiously transmits these collaged, transformed images by hand with<br />
acrylic paint onto canvas. Redefining the art historical notion of painterly<br />
abstraction, Walsh paints large scale brushstrokes such that they appear<br />
as if they’ve been carelessly passed through a photocopier — warped and<br />
echoing the familiar visual palette of the Xerox machine. While the viewer<br />
might see large, expressive brushstrokes from afar, up close one sees an<br />
almost digital color field, devoid of any painterly gesture. Walsh subverts our<br />
expectations of what abstraction means and can mean, imbuing modernist<br />
inclinations of the canvas with a contemporary interpretation, and very<br />
deliberately referencing the history of abstraction.<br />
DELLA WELLS MILWAUKEE<br />
My Rainbow Makes Me Dance, <strong>2019</strong> • Collage on paper, 16 x 12 inches •<br />
Courtesy of the artist and Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee<br />
Della Wells employs the medium of collage to construct fractured and<br />
whimsical compositions. Together, her works reveal an imaginary world<br />
she refers to as “Mambo Land,” a dynamic environment which serves as<br />
an arena for women and girls to take control of their own fears. In Haitian<br />
Vodou religion, a Mambo is a female priestess, one who often performs<br />
healing works and guides others throughout complex rituals. Similarly,<br />
in Wells’s collages, women are the predominant figures, presiding over<br />
each scene. In Mambo Land, there is no fixed point of reference; scales<br />
shift, people and animals fly, children rule, monsters thrive, and daily<br />
routines are given a sense of staggering importance. These collages create<br />
a subverted world, utilizing symbolism such as American flags, highway<br />
signs, state buildings, and chickens, to offer a complex commentary on<br />
what it means to be a Black woman in this current political moment.<br />
9
GALLERY TALKS<br />
KIDS’ ART ADVENTURES<br />
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 • 6:30–7:30 PM<br />
In Conversation: Chele Isaac and Helen Hawley<br />
Together, Chele Isaac and Helen Hawley will examine their<br />
individual approach to making their video installations and<br />
describe their conceptual underpinnings, such as<br />
phenomena and rhythms of nature.<br />
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7 • 1–1:45 PM<br />
Stephen Perkins on Latin American Art and<br />
the Decolonial Turn<br />
Stephen Perkins will discuss his installation which is a<br />
response to an exhibition he visited at the Museo Jumex in<br />
Mexico City in 2018 made from materials from his archive,<br />
coupled with works by Latin American artists.<br />
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6 • 6:30–7:30 PM<br />
In Conversation: Tomiko Jones and Tom Jones<br />
In this joint gallery talk, Tomiko Jones and Tom Jones<br />
will discuss how they each extend the boundaries of<br />
photography to explore identity, tradition, and<br />
intergenerational understanding.<br />
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10 • 1–2:30 PM<br />
Enjoy a variety of artwork that highlights the natural<br />
landscapes of our world. Use printmaking techniques<br />
to create a postcard celebrating your favorite<br />
aspects of nature.<br />
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8 • 1–2:30 PM<br />
Let the exciting paintings that show interwoven<br />
colors and shapes spark your imagination and make<br />
your own woven paper collage.<br />
MMoCAKIDS ARTPACK<br />
Stop by the museum’s lobby welcome desk and ask<br />
for the MMoCAkids ArtPack, the museum’s hands-on<br />
discovery kit for exploring art throughout the museum,<br />
which includes a special take-home activity developed<br />
for the <strong>Wisconsin</strong> <strong>Triennial</strong>.<br />
DROP-IN TOURS<br />
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9 • 1–1:30 PM<br />
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14 • 1–1:30 PM<br />
10
MMo CA BOARD OF TRUSTEES<br />
Officers<br />
Trustees<br />
Larry Frank<br />
Dave Orr<br />
Marc Vitale, President<br />
Shiva Bidar<br />
Sara Guyer<br />
Amy Paulios<br />
Vikki Enright, Vice-President<br />
Marian Bolz, Life Trustee<br />
Cedric Johnson<br />
Rick Phelps<br />
Bret Newcomb, Vice-President<br />
Leslie Smith III, Vice-President<br />
Charlotte Cummins, Secretary<br />
Dynee Sheafor, Treasurer<br />
Bryan Chan<br />
Karen Christianson<br />
Jennifer DeMain<br />
Jim Escalante<br />
Dave Franchino<br />
Valerie Kazamias,<br />
Life Trustee and Chair,<br />
The Langer Society<br />
Jason Knutson<br />
Oscar Mireles<br />
Eric Plautz<br />
Jennifer Ridley-Hanson<br />
John Ronzia<br />
John Sims<br />
QuHarrison Terry<br />
MMo CA STAFF<br />
Administrative Department<br />
Stephen Fleischman, the Gabriele<br />
Haberland Director<br />
Michael Paggie, Business Manager<br />
Judy Schwickerath, Accountant<br />
Curatorial Department<br />
Mel Becker Solomon, Curator of the<br />
Collection<br />
Leah Kolb, Curator of Exhibitions<br />
Marilyn L.M. Sohi, Head Registrar,<br />
Permanent Collection<br />
Carol Chapin, Collection Database and<br />
Image Production Manager<br />
Stephanie Zech, Associate Registrar<br />
Doug Fath, Preparator<br />
Elizabeth Anderson, Assistant Curator<br />
Installations and Facilities Department<br />
Brian Bartlett, Director of Installations<br />
and Facilities<br />
Bruce Crownover, Installations and<br />
Facilities Associate<br />
Sarah Stankey, Assistant Preparator/<br />
Photographer<br />
Operations Department<br />
Bob Sylvester, Director of Public<br />
Operations<br />
Jason Bank, Public Operations Manager<br />
Museum Store<br />
Leslie Genszler, Director of Retail<br />
Operations<br />
Laurie Stacy, Manager<br />
Education Department<br />
Sheri Castelnuovo, Curator of Education<br />
Kelsey Knutsen, Education Associate<br />
Janet Laube, Education Associate<br />
Simone Doing, Education Assistant<br />
Development Department<br />
Elizabeth Tucker, Grant Writer<br />
Annik Dupaty, Director of Events<br />
and Volunteer<br />
Kaitlin Kropp, Development Officer<br />
Amy Lambright Murphy, Events and<br />
Volunteers Assistant<br />
Bob Sylvester, Private Events and<br />
Wedding Rentals<br />
Betsy Wyns, Development Associate<br />
Communications Department<br />
Erika Monroe-Kane, Director of Strategic<br />
Communications and Engagement<br />
Charlotte Easterling, Head of<br />
Graphic Design<br />
11<br />
TO LEARN MORE VISIT MMOCA.ORG/<strong>2019</strong>-WISCONSIN-TRIENNIAL
Generous support for the <strong>2019</strong> <strong>Wisconsin</strong><br />
<strong>Triennial</strong> has been provided by Ellen Rosner and<br />
Paul J. Reckwerdt; Nancy Mohs; the Steinhauer<br />
Charitable Trust; University Research Park; Katie<br />
Howarth Ryan; JoAnne Robbins and David Falk;<br />
Nancy Doll and Michael Bernhard; Karen and<br />
Craig Christianson; Darcy Kind and Marc Vitale;<br />
Dynee and Barney Sheafor; Lynda and Charles<br />
Clark; BDO USA, LLP; an anonymous donor;<br />
Dane County Arts with additional funds from<br />
the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, the Evjue<br />
Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of the Capital<br />
Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation,<br />
and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation; and a<br />
grant from the <strong>Wisconsin</strong> Arts Board with funds<br />
from the State of <strong>Wisconsin</strong> and the National<br />
Endowment for the Arts. Design support is<br />
provided by Hiebing.
227 STATE STREET, MADISON, WI<br />
TO LEARN MORE VISIT MMOCA.ORG/<strong>2019</strong>-WISCONSIN-TRIENNIAL<br />
OR CALL 608.257.0158