More than a ‘Blip’ at Portrait Society

On the morning of the day I received the press release for “Blip” at Portrait Society gallery, featuring the work of Melissa Scherrer Paré and Skully Gustafson, I also received at least 20 bogus exam essays generated by artificial intelligence from my students. I didn’t connect the two events at the time, but after seeing the exhibition on a gorgeous late May morning, I concluded that the events represented two social forces heading in very different directions, marking the springtime of human civilization’s reckoning with not only radical new technologies, but with the future of how we see and engage the world around us.

Unexpected colors, objects, forms, relationships and materials greeted me generously from the entrance of the gallery. A two-tiered, gallery-white pedestal supporting 6 of Paré’s dazzlingly colored and highly textured vessels functions as a conceptual framing device. Its measured neutrality elevates the eccentricity of Paré’s motley crew of containers, and against their white geometry, her mottled, matte-surfaced, paper pulp vessels look like misfit pageant contestants about to abandon their scripts and do their own thing on stage. Despite their punky-chunky edginess, Paré’s modified containers maintain a self-possessed elegance, each with a wild, unique, but tasteful color scheme and hand-hewn surfacing with matte skins as powdery dry as the cheeks of French queens.

A slightly cock-eyed salon-style grid of 50 compositions by Skully Gustafson occupies the far wall of the larger adjacent gallery. The sprawling group converses with Pare’s work about how it also feels like bursting and scattering into individual parts. Gustafson’s wall installation functions ambiguously as a single teeming, bundled whole, clearly benefitting from the energy of its component drawings. And it’s kind of fun to scan the whole for unexpected moments of brilliance of which there are several. The impact of Gustafson’s individual works, however, is clearer in several larger stand-alone mixed-media paintings. One 40 x 30-inch riot of accumulated information titled Beautiful Lady into Paradise, bears a pic of Sinead O’Connor, a bold blue scrawl reading “fuck you,” and a restaurant menu, against a pink background of brightly colored gestures. The work sums up the enthusiasm and raw energy in all of Gustafson’s work. Beautiful Lady doesn’t necessarily look like anything else in the show—her pieces are all very different visually–but it evokes the improvised organic freshness that is at the heart of each effort. And in the context of machine-based answers to essay questions, organic anything is a blessing.

Above anything else, “Blip” feels fresh. It feels alive, organic, and very, very human. There are fingerprints and idea-prints all over the work. On top of the grouped selections mentioned already, Paré offers a dozen other individual pieces that intertwine with and sizzle next to Gustafson’s two-dimensional works. Two of Paré’s pieces sharing a shelf by the main gallery door perfectly capture the show’s fingerprint-ey essence. “Waves,” as its title suggests, cuts a wavey silhouette and is stuccoed with tonally muted but multicolor wads of pulped paper. The shape of “Circus” takes our mind immediately to classical amphorae and the bread and entertainments that pacified Roman citizens two millennia ago.

2000 years later a handmade vessel excites the hell out me as it wouldn’t have them. Then again, the Roman Empire didn’t have algorithms or ChatGPT stripping their society of its remaining humanity. They had wars of conquest to do that. It’s funny that I suspected the students who used AI in their exams, not because their essays were poorly composed, but because the text was too perfect and similar. I ended up giving those students amnesty and reminded them in Jeremiad-like fashion that their greatest asset going forward isn’t skill and polish, but humanity itself. I might have simply taken them to “Blip” and saved my breath.

Event Listings: May 30–June 8, 2024

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Gallery Talk: “Life Captured in Line: 17th-Century Dutch and Flemish Prints”
• Thursday, May 30, 12–1 p.m.

MARN ART+CULTURE Hub

• MARNexchange with AP3
• Thursday, May 30, 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA)

• Collection Highlights Tour with curator Graeme Reid
• Friday, May 29, 10 a.m.–12 p.m.

Bayview Gallery Night

• (Check website for full listings: bvgn.org)
• Friday, May 31, 5–9 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Saturday, June 1, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Story Time in the Galleries
• Saturday, June 1, 10:30–11 a.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tours: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Saturday, June 1, 2–3 p.m.

Haggerty Museum of Art

• Reception for 2023 Nohl Fellows Exhibition
• Saturday, June 1, 4–6 p.m.

Alice Wilds Gallery

• Keith Nelson artist talk
• Saturday, June 1, 1 p.m.

Cedarburg Art Museum

• Docent Guided Tour
• Saturday, June 1, 1–1:30 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Sunday, June 2, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tours: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Sunday, June 2, 2–3 p.m.

Lakefront Brewery

• Sculpture Milwaukee Art Exhibition Tour Run
• Monday, June 3, 6 p.m.

Milwaukee Public Library, Main Branch

• Art Book Club
• Tuesday, June 4, 5–7 p.m.

Villa Terrace Decorative Art Museum

• Work from Home Wednesday: coworking session at the Villa
• Wednesday, June 5, 12–3 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Coffee with the Director
• Wednesday, June 5, 2–3 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Group Therapy (Women): Black Space at MAM
• Wednesday, June 5, 5:30–7 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Thursday, June 6, 10 a.m.–6:30 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Free Day + Celebration: Freedom!
• Thursday, June 6, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Lecture: Valerie Cassel Oliver on Sam Gilliam
• Thursday, June 6, 6:15–7:15 p.m.

Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts

• Annual Fiber Rummage Sale and Drop off
• Thursday, June 6.– Saturday, June 8

Jewish Museum Milwaukee

• Opening Preview of Chagall’s “Dead Souls: A Satirical Account of Imperialist Russia”
• Thursday, June 6, 7–9 p.m.

Mitchell Street Arts (MiSA)

• Artist Talk: Katy Cowan
• Thursday, June 6, 6 p.m.

MOWA | DTN

• Artist talk: James Danky (curator and comics historian)
• Friday, June 7, 7–8 p.m.

James May Gallery

• Opening Reception: “Katherine Steichen Rosing: Atmospheric Intimacies”
• Friday, June 7, 5–8 p.m.

Real Tinsel Gallery

• Opening Reception: “Sword Thumbs”
• Friday, June 7, 6–8 p.m.

Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA)

• Second Saturdays
• Saturday, June 8, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Saturday, June 8, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Story Time in the Galleries
• Saturday, June 8, 10:30–11 a.m.

Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum

• Breathwork in the Garden
• Saturday, June 8, 11 a.m.–12 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Guest Artist Talk: Hiding in Plain Sight
• Saturday, June 8, 1–2 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tours: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Satuday, June 8, 2–3 p.m.

Saint Kate, the Arts Hotel

• AIR Time, Art & Studio Tour with AIR Anwar Floyd-Pruitt
• Saturday, June 8, 6:30 p.m.

The Pfister Hotel

• Champagne Art & Studio Tour with AIR Heidi Parkes
• Saturday, June 8, 4–5 p.m.