Exhibition & Program Schedule

LORI WAXMAN'S 60 WRD/MIN ART CRITIC COMING TO INOVA

MAY 31 - JUNE 2, 2013

For three days at INOVA Chicago-based art critic Lori Waxman will receive artists in need of reviews as part of her project, the “60 wrd/min art critic.” Reviews, which are free of charge, will be scheduled and written in twenty-five minute increments only during these hours: Friday, May 31 to Sunday, June 2, 11-1:30 & 2:30-5:00 each day. Reviews will be signed, published and ready for pick-up within the time frame of the performance. Artist, artwork, critic, and review will all exist in the same space simultaneously, thereby helping to demystify the art review process. The reviews will be posted at the performance site and will remain on view throughout the weekend. In addition, the reviews will be published by the Shepherd Express (select reviews in print and all reviews online) in the week following the performance.

Advance appointments can be made beginning May 17, 2013 by emailing critic@60wrdmin.org. Walk-in hours will be held Sunday, June 2, from 2:30-5:00.

Lori Waxman is a Chicago-based critic and art historian. She publishes a biweekly column in the Chicago Tribune and has written for Artforum and Parachute, as well as for catalogue essays large and small. She is the co-author and co-editor of Girls! Girls! Girls! in contemporary art (Intellect Press, 2011) and teaches art history and new arts journalism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The 60 wrd/min art critic is a project of the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program. More information on this national project can be found at www.60wrdmin.org.

THE AVANT GARDE COFFEEHOUSE PROJECT

APRIL 5 – MAY 19, 2013 - FREE (Note: exhibition has been extended one week)

Opening Reception: April 5, 5-9pm (includes live theatre and guitar performances)

This multi-faceted exhibition will include photography, ephemera, documentary video, sound recordings, and live performances by students in the UWM Finger-Style Guitar Program.

The collection of original audio recordings, photography, film, and other artifacts continues to grow, thanks to the involvement of and generous contributions from individuals closely associated with the Avant Garde. These materials provide the foundation for continuing research, development of critical pedagogical materials, and a deeper understanding of the emergence of finger-style guitar as art music.

Background

From 1962 to 1968, the Avant Garde Coffeehouse, located at 2111 North Prospect, was the locus of the folk/blues revival. Not only did the coffeehouse host local and nationally known musicians, but it was also a hotbed for experimental films, poetry readings, and performance art. There were places like this in other areas of the country, but, in Wisconsin, none as important as the Avant Garde.

In order to examine more deeply the history and impact of this unexpected icon in Milwaukee’s underground art scene, faculty, students and staff in the UWM Peck School of the Arts Music Department/Finger-Style Guitar Program and the Department of Theatre embarked on the long-term, multi-departmental research, and community-engagement Avant Garde Coffeehouse Project.

The Finger-Style Guitar Program – the only university-level course of study of its kind in the world – encourages students to make contributions to the emerging academic identity of the genre through research, transcription, and engagement with broader cultural and historical themes informing the discipline. The Avant Garde Coffeehouse Project provided the perfect opportunity for students to connect with the roots of the creative community in which they work and live.

For Theatre students and faculty, this project complemented the Department’s mission to create new work in support of community engagement. They led the long-term process of integrating all the research and writing to bring the visual, musical and human narrative to life.

The work of our dedicated students, faculty, and members of the community culminates in three dynamic ways:

• A retrospective installation & exhibition at the Institute of Visual Arts (Inova)
• Special student performances from our world-renowned Guitar program
• A world-premiere performance written by a Peck School Alumna and performed by Theatre and Guitar students

For more information

Martha Wilson

June 7 – August 11, 2013

Martha Wilson, from A Portfolio of Models , 1974

Over the span of her 40-year career, Martha Wilson has embraced the critical questions posed by feminist and socially engaged art. Her complex body of work encompasses conceptually based performances, videos, and photo-text compositions dealing with identity as self-defined, projected, and negotiated. Regarding both gender and identity as fluid expression, Wilson has focused on fictive appearances and double transformations. She was one of the very earliest artists to explore the effects of “camera presence” in self-representation, using masquerade as a form of resistance in manipulating both her internal sense of self and her outward appearance. Wilson has also been a force of transformative change as founder and director of the Franklin Furnace performance space. This exhibition mines all of her experimental practices to examine past and current attitudes toward feminism, activism, and collaborative work.

Martha Wilson is a traveling exhibition organized by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. Initiating curator for the exhibition is Peter Dykhuis. The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the ICI Board of Trustees, and ICI Benefactors Barbara and John Robinson.

Steve Rowell: Uncanny Local

June 21 – September 15,  2013

Steve Rowell, Opening Weekend, Deer Season 2012, Navarino Wildlife Area, Wisconsin , 2012

Through the use of autonomous camera systems, camouflaged sensors, and remote audio monitors, this exhibition will present raw media from the field — animal behavior, industrial processes, erosional effects — in an immersive video and sound installation.

Relying on unmediated (or minimally mediated) raw media, Steve Rowell reduces his role as an artist in the conventional sense (as photographer, recordist) and expands his role as interpreter, editor, and curator of the landscape. This is a conscious experiment in subtracting the anthropic bias from the creative process in favor of direct data. Field experiments and durational installations of equipment will include: aerial surveillance cameras, motion sensing wildlife cameras, climate sensors, and submersible robots. The resulting installation will feature video and audio extracts from the collected media from each sensor, camera, and listening device.

By experimenting with techniques of sensory perception in remote places, this project aims to create a new perceptual territory for the viewer to engage with. This exhibition is the first substantive research towards a larger project that will span the continent titled Uncanny Sensing, Remote Valleys aimed at investigating the philosophical dilemmas of the anthropic principle. Beneath the technological elements of the project are evocations of animism, activism and indeterminacy.

Steve Rowell is an artist, curator, and researcher whose transdisciplinary practice focuses on overlapping aspects of technology, perception, and culture related to the landscape. Rowell is Program Manager at The Center for Land Use Interpretation since 2001; he collaborates with SIMPARCH and The Office of 9 Experiments. He recently received a Creative Capital grant in support of Uncanny Sensing, Remote Valleys.