Paul Yank's Twilight Of The Sioux monoprint on view at the Cedarburg Art Museum as part of the "Process and Perspective" exhibit.
In her groundbreaking text “The Art Museum as Ritual,” theorist Carol Duncan discusses the similarities between religious institutions and secular art museums in shaping our experiences through structures of power and expected behavior. She famously identified the threshold of a museum’s entrance as a site where individuals suddenly shift their frames of reference and degrees of reverence as they become seduced by the majesty of the institution.
Take our own dedicated temple of fine art, the Milwaukee Art Museum: Santiago Calatrava’s white-winged vision is an unmatched architectural achievement, housing a world-class collection of works from the canon of historically anointed makers. But it’s designed to astound, not to catch you off guard to be surprised by what’s inside.
Twenty miles north of the Milwaukee Art Museum, in the bedroom community of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, there lives a humble museum that reflects the mellow sweetness of its local community as surely as it rejects the institutional sterility that we’ve come to expect from most urban art palaces. It’s the exception that proves the rule in Duncan’s analysis. Opened in 2013 and located in a converted Victorian house on the town’s picturesque main avenue, it stands as a rare case of an art museum being, uh, welcoming.
Veteran artist Paul Yank’s exhibition “Process and Perspective,” on view at the museum through Aug. 26, adds some visual surprises to those welcomes. Yank has lived and practiced in Cedarburg for five decades and might be considered its unofficial artist-in-residence—his home/studio has become something of a town landmark. The cozy interior galleries of the museum are lined with dozens of his wildly diverse monoprints, featuring appearances by Samurai warriors, Native shamans and the divine Greek creator, Prometheus. It’s a little dense at times, but this is because the galleries are small and intimate, and Yank’s prints are big presences.
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There is no typical Yank monoprint, some are more figural while others accumulate collagraphic layers until they flirt with total abstraction. Some, like Twilight of the Sioux, are compelled by process, while others, such as Celtic Armor, are more graphic and illustrative. Dreamweaver, from a series of Native American imagery, demonstrates how his objective content sources grapple with his more aleatory art-making process. The head and hand of a figure sink into a complex tissue of process-made forms, eventually becoming secondary to them. A sense of Native American inspiration remains, but the work thrives more on formal invention than legible content.
Yank spent eight years as a sculptor-in-residence creating dioramas for the Milwaukee Public Museum, a four-year residence making art in Kyoto, Japan, and countless trips around the world to gather ideas for his work. This helps explain his range and choice of subject matter. Still, his work walks a fine line in 2018 between being anthropologically omnivorous and culturally fetishistic. But times have changed radically over Yank’s 60-year career as an artist, so we might cut him some slack. I can’t tell you day-to-day what the current rules of cultural appropriation are.
It’s worth noting that Milwaukee-based sculptor Richard Taylor is also exhibiting a wonderful series of musically inspired bronze sculptures throughout the grounds of the Cedarburg Art Museum. I discovered them while walking toward an acoustic guitarist who was playing “Brown Eyed Girl” in the beer garden during a regular summer event. It was a fortuitous discovery. The type of discovery I wouldn’t have bothered making in a more oppressive setting. So in this case a little Van Morrison and institutional informality was to my advantage. Sometimes art takes discipline, sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes it takes Van Morrison and an accident. As Carol Duncan suggested decades ago, a little bit of ritual may lead us to a higher place, and a little bit more might lead to cultural paralysis, so it’s up to us to decide what, where and how much “a little” should be.
OPENINGS
Elsa Ulbricht and the WPA Milwaukee Handicraft Project July 19 Haggerty Museum of Art 520 N. 13th St.
In this free event, attendees can learn about the life of Milwaukee artist Elsa Ulbricht in a gallery talk with the Milwaukee Public Museum’s Jacqueline M. Schweitzer. Find out how Ulbricht devised the Milwaukee Handicraft Project—a WPA initiative that provided jobs for some 5,000 people during the Great Depression. Meet in the Haggerty Art Museum lobby for this talk, which will eventually lead to a formal exhibit at the Haggerty titled “A Perfect Thrill: Else Ulbricht and the Milwaukee Handicraft Project.”
Sheboygan Visual Artists Exhibit and Sale July 19-Aug. 26 Cedarburg Cultural Center W62 N546 Washington Ave., Cedarburg
The Cedarburg Cultural Center’s West, East and Lobby galleries host an exhibit and sale that highlights artworks by 38 amateur and professional Sheboygan artists working in many media.
July Gallery Night at Hudson July 20 Hudson Business Lounge + Cafe 310 E. Buffalo St.
Hudson Business Lounge celebrates Gallery Night with a VIP reception for the participating artists of the Third Ward Plein Air Painting Competition (5-6:30 p.m., $10 to attend). The gallery is open to the public 6:30-9 p.m.
Tom Shelton: The Fruits of Analysis July 20-21 David Barnett Gallery 1024 E. State St.
Downtown Milwaukee’s David Barnett Gallery presents new works by artist Tom Shelton, presenting large-scale paintings of fruit and conceptual drawings and some of his earlier paintings of nature. Shelton’s analytical works are innovative and visually captivating—a science-art hybrid. He’ll be on hand for the exhibition’s opening reception.
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The Book Club: What Would We Do with Lynne Tillman? July 20-Sep. 1 Frank Juarez Gallery 207 E. Buffalo St., Suite 600
This wholistic installation is an experiment in group dynamics and addresses complexity in a made and experienced world. Viewers will experience paintings, drawings, sculpture, photographs, furniture and more in an interactive exhibition that features five artists responding to the same theme: Tillman’s book’s complex text.
Small Scale Landscape Design July 21 Lynden Sculpture Garden 2145 W. Brown Deer Road
Garden design is at least a craft and at most, it rises to an art form. Michelle Zimmer discovered that designing a garden to complement a newly installed Bonsai exhibit at Lynden Sculpture Garden. Join her for an informal presentation and discussion of the design process for perennial gardens.
Midsummer Festival of the Arts July 21-22 John Michael Kohler Arts Center 608 New York Ave.
Works of art, live music and art-making activities will fill the grounds of Sheboygan’s John Michael Kohler Arts Center in this event, now in its 48th year. Some 135 artists from across the country have been juried into this festival which includes diverse creative items such as painting, jewelry, leather, sculpture, ceramics, art glass and more.
Yoga in the Garden: Asanas and Art July 29 Lynden Sculpture Garden 2145 W. Brown Deer Road
Each of Heather Eiden’s yoga classes begins with chai and ends with reflective journaling. In between, participants follow her lead in the ongoing process of discovery that is yoga. More specifically, beginning-intermediate Hatha yoga, focused on mindfulness, centering and alignment.
