Cissy Peltz, long time owner of Peltz Gallery, opens her doors on January's Gallery Night and Day to the exhibition “Visions, Voices, Viewpoints and Victories of African American Artists.” The exhibit's guest curator, Milwaukee's own Della Wells, invites more than 25 artists to display their work on the walls of the vintage home, including artists Reginald and Trenton Baylor. Each artist will be distinctly African American, and for the first time in numerous years. Peltz will exhibit furniture, photography and fiber art constructed through the quilt tradition.
Are all these artworks uniquely African American and does the art community wish to delineate between an African-American artist and any other artist? Wells answers the question in her curator's statement, “My goal was to give the viewer a glimpse into what African American artists are producing particularly in Wisconsin…and in a post racial America….and is there still a need to produce exhibitions based on racial, cultural, or ethnic designation?”
This statement provides some background for the Peltz exhibition and Wells' intent, that she wants the viewer to ask these questions: Does being a certain ethnicity, gender, race or sexual orientation matter in art? Perhaps this attunes Milwaukee, along with other cities, to experience art in another context, to examine the work from these visions, voices, and viewpoints that share skin color. Even though a whiter shade of paler skin color produces aesthetic visions as varied as a kaleidoscope, so does African American art.
Viewers need to remember these thoughts and keep Wells' final sentence from her statement in mind, “The art work in this exhibition was chosen not simply because the artists were African American but because each has a definite vision, voice, and viewpoint…and like many artists in our western culture, African American artists fight for victories to have their artistic visions seen and understood.”
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With these themes in the mind's eye, Peltz will showcase Willie Cole's pint Rapture over the gallery's fireplace mantel. In a tribute to Alvin Ailey, Dorothy Dandridge, Gregory Hines and Bessie Smith, Trish Williams presents a quilt titled They Make Me Feel Like Dancing. Portia Cobb will display six color photographs depicting South Carolina low country while George Williams, Jr. exhibits three smaller paintings reflecting on the nude, black male, a change from his usually larger scale figurative work. Sherry Kerry-Harlan uses oil pastel on fabric that also embraces collage in a work she calls Urban Chatter and Kehinde Wiley presents several sculptures. This describes only a small sample of the artwork in the exhibition.
While about one half of the artist's call Milwaukee home, the other half brings artwork from across the country to an exhibition that will certainly generate conversation, an expectation worthy of all art. Peltz hosts the opening reception on Friday's gallery night, 6:00-9:00 p.m., while she offers her free French Breakfast along with coffee, conversation and comfort food on Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
A mile or two south from the Peltz Gallery location on Knapp Street, where Reginald Baylor's paintings help define one exhibit, Baylor moves his personal gallery back in the Historic Third Ward's Marshall Building. The first floor space with windows open to Buffalo Street will focus on creativity and feature a variety of “artists,” although they will display themes for creative living, including Devin Arch's digital and video images.
The multimedia exhibition showcases Baylor's newest addition to his artwork%u23AFline drawings that he deconstructs from his original paintings and downloads to a digital picture frame. The digital painting moves on the screen divided into sections, similar to squares on a Rubric's cube, until the finished image remains. These continuous one-minute loops slowly changing the image may be voluntarily stopped to view only the completed, stilled painting.
Baylor discovered his painting images transfer well to a variety of mediums, all just media that Baylor considers a non-traditional canvas, which by using continually fascinates and fuels his own creativity. Even his denim and leather fibers layered over cut wood envision an entirely different frame of reference. Stop in at the Marshall Building to admire the many facets to Baylor's art on exhibit for Winter Gallery Night and Day, January 21 and 22.