Behold Art & Censorship On Spring Gallery Night

When is Censorship Ever Acceptable?

Apr. 23, 2012

8:35 p.m.

This weekend, Spring Gallery Night was colder than the recent warm weather Milwaukee has enjoyed. Yet, everyone retrieved their winter coats and hit the downtown streets. The Marshall Building located on the corner of Buffalo and Water Street provides a refuge from the April chill and contains over 20 venues.  On the building's fifth floor, the Portrait Society Gallery rearranged its galleries for comfort. A white sectional sofa curved around Gallery B with the entries for their BS @ PS photo book contest placed on the shelves that were hung on the walls. Visitors could take their time, perusing the award winners and peek inside any other cover that attracted their fancy. Owner Debra Brehmer's gallery invites crowds to connect through her innovative exhibitions drawn to building the art community.<o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> On the third floor, Bridget Griffith Evans and Gene Evans were outside their freshly redesigned gallery, which displayed an original large-scale painting by Gene, who just completed a permanent 10 feet tall guitar sculpture for Waukesha's Guitar Town event the end of May. Next door, Spill Gallery had moved beside the Lucky Star Studio duo and was offering a painting booth where girls could be innocently splatter painted over a black t-shirt and jeans. A few doors north, the American Civil Liberties Union hosted "Eye of the Beholder: Censorship in Art from Eden to Milwaukee.”<o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> Every image in the ACLU exhibition had been censored in one or several exhibitions and featured works by Anne Kingsbury, Fahimeh Vahdet and Philip Krejcarek. Several of Kingsbury's works depicted nudes, couples titled Adam and Eve (a pair of large, life size woodcuts) and pen and ink drawings with an older couple kissing, The Kiss Circa 1969. Nudes, while an art form referenced from classical antiquity, might often stimulate an ambivalent reaction in the eyes of the many beholders. Sometimes exhibitions and art shows (including September\'s annual Hidden River Art Festival) reject nudes and refuse to let the images be on display.The ACLU\'s one night only exhibit proved to be eye-opening and thought provoking for all beholders on gallery night. What else could possibly be censored at another venue?<o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> A flight down to the second floor, Thé Gallery showcased David A. Powell's inventive, playful sculptures constructed from wood and found objects, three titled Birth of Color, Keep Calm and Carry On, and Orgins of Life. Each sculpture deserves a personal, up close viewing. Dagmara Costello's sterling silver, 14kt. and diamond jewelry were tucked neart the far west wall in glass cases. These reasonably priced pieces would delight the feminine eye to wear, the male eye to affectionately admire, and decorate an ear, finger or hand with a gift to consider for an upcoming Mother\'s Day. Greymatter Gallery showcased some great photography in their exhibition Discourse, the exhibition quickly defining the gallery known for its contemporary vantage point with work by artist Christian Arrecis. <o:p> </o:p> Reginald Baylor Studio featured fashion designer Shanel Regier with a display of day, evening and wedding dresses. The front window visible from the studio's interior featured Regier's own wedding gown, a soft blush full skirted gown, alongside a fabulous strapless satin white gown with a dropped waist. Throughout the studio, dresses and skirts graced manikins demonstrating that custom fashion represents exciting art to wear. For inquiries visit: shanelregier.com. On the way out of the Marshall Building, the door opened and the steely armored Gallery Night came in to warm up while passing out clever stickers to promote Gallery Night. At the South End of the Historic Third Ward, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design filled its halls and galleries to the brim for their recent 2012 Senior Exhibition. Check back at the college several times in the next few weeks to view the impressive array of senior student art. The retailer Design Within Reach offered an environmental competition and exhibition under the name"Urban(wood) Encounter." The sophisticated and surprising furniture designs tantalized the eyes of numerous beholders searching for art to live in and with. Stunning designs in chairs and tables could beautify any interior, where using “urban wood” transforms into art worthy, functional furniture that can be found at <a href=\"mailto:dwayne@wudewood.com\">dwayne@wudewood.com</a> or wudewood.com. Inside Tory Folliard Gallery, Mark Chatterly transformed the space into an animal wonderland with his clay treated sculptures suitable for indoor or outdoor display. His bold, figurative work stood among the creatures, each built and modeled six inches at a time. Two, The Kiss and Holes(Boundary Markers) invited more personal scrutiny as did his Crows. These two lines of life size birds walk vertically up the gallery wall until a bird perches on one of Chatterley's distorted heads. Morphed shaped heads pierced with 'holes\' take the form of eccentric shaped birdhouses available at the gallery for those who would prefer affordable and smaller sized artwork.  Later this week at Art Talk discover the process to Chatterley's work and an interview with Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger, artists who presented an exquisite exhibition at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts, Inova Kenilworth Gallery. Surprisingly, the pair\'s work saturates the gallery with sexual overtones and still remains on display and uncensored, although the husbands know countless eyes either giggle or look away when viewing their expressive and sometimes unusual artwork in a gallery or out in public when performing. When is censorship in art ever acceptable? Or should exhibitions merely contain warnings on their subject material, similar to films? The subject surfaced this week when viewing the exhibition at Latino Arts, Inc. titled "Painting Borges: Art Interpreting Literature." Several of the images were sexually explicit and the curator remained uncertain about what should be on view for the middle school children she needed to walk through the gallery. Or does she display the pictures and avoid them when discussing the exhibit? Would that be called censorship and is it dependent on the audience?  When is the nude artful and when does the drawn or painted figure become exploitive? These are questions rarely discussed in the public forum and when the city's weather warms again, stop by these exhibitons to train the artistic eye for a second (or even first) viewing and wonder what could be censored and why it would need to be in the eye of any beholder.     <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>

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