The Winter Gallery Night and Day provides several exhibits offering the experience of challenging the mind and eye through thought-provoking images. Among them is the Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design’s “Advertising or Design: The Big Question.” The exhibition’s opening party is Jan. 16, beginning at 5 p.m. The Eisner will be open to the public during regular hours on Saturday.
Exploring the close relationship between art, design and culture, this exhibit showcases national advertising companies that design for products like Miller beer, Levi’s and Mini-Cooper. Nike and Target campaigns depict the development of their logos, the swoosh and red bulls eye, now memorable without even a letter of print on their ads.
Madison advertising firm Planet Propaganda also displays six original linoleum block prints, artistically elegant, which are then silk-screened in several sizes from 11-inch letters to six-foot posters. Beautifully effective, these designs illustrate the importance of advertising incorporating fine art in ads.
The Eisner Museum continues to ask these “big questions” by offering lectures during the run of their exhibitions. The Steve Sandstrom lecture, 6 p.m. on Jan. 29, features Sandstrom Design, whose creations contracted for Tazo Tea and St. Germain Liqueur are in this show. This collective conversation addresses the topic “What is Advertising? What is Design?” Gallery Night and Day offers too much to absorb in an evening and an afternoon.
Among the highlights is the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design’s “This Land is My Land.” Seven national multi-media artists ask questions regarding the country’s increasing divergent communities and environments. Friday, 5-9 pm.
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Walker’s Point Center for the Arts offers “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Relationships in Love” presented by African-American Artists Beginning to Educate Americans about African- American Art (ABEA). The 18 represented artists consider what is the “truth” conveyed by our perceptions and experiences in various personal and professional relationships.
Friday, 6-9 pm. Elaine Erickson Gallery in the Marshall Building presents “The Meaningful Object” with installations, sculpture and jewelry referencing war and contemporary cultural issues. All 12 featured artists will be available for comments on their art at the opening reception. Saturday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
