The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Inova/Kenilworth Gallery remains quiet on a Friday afternoon. An Art History graduate student, Neil Gasparka, watches over the back gallery in solitude. His art history degree focuses on contemporary art, which may be defined as any art post-1970’s, and includes the work in this current exhibition “Spatial City: An Architecture of Idealism.” Working with curator Nicholas Frank from the first inklings and efforts to bring the exhibition to Milwaukee as a graduate intern has only confirmed his passion surrounding contemporary art. Gasparka welcomes the opportunity to express his thoughts on the traveling exhibit.
Q: How did you help with this exhibit when you were interning at Inova?
A: I started my internship when Nicholas began curating the show. We couldn’t arrange to have the show here unless we found additional venues for it in the United States, the cost would have been too great. Most of the show comes from French collections and we needed to find other venues to make this show feasible. I needed to find some other venues so we could support bringing the show to Milwaukee, and this is how I worked with it as an intern. So, the show will be traveling to Detroit and Chicago after it closes in Milwaukee.
Q: This show exhibits contemporary art and how do you feel about the current state of contemporary art?
A: One of the questions we deal with is minimalism, is minimalism part of the movement, and consequently, is the idea [concept behind the art] worthy of the piece of art, the product. I still think there’s this argument that the idea takes precedent, the comment before the artwork, especially in contemporary art, understanding and thinking about the title or the piece, the artist's meaning. We had someone at the exhibit, a young man, come through here and look at one of the pieces and say to his father, “Is that art?” Then he asked his father, “Then is the trash can art, too?”
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Q: How do you explain that?
A: Concept and context are crucial to art, when and how it’s displayed. It’s impossible to redo the masterworks because of what they meant in their time, because of their meaning then, and how we see it afterwards. We’ll never have another Sistine Chapel, but we might have something more profound and meaningful someday.
Q: In what context do you see this exhibition?
A: This is an exhibition of FRAC mentality. [The French Regional Contemporary Art Funds, with a mission to inform, collect, and disseminate in respect to French culture in the arts]. France began a process of decentralizing their art collections so regional art could be bought by regional governments, and then brought in [to exhibits] and share space alongside national and international art. This is what we have done in this exhibition, tried to continue that concept. Steve Wetzel, a video artist, is the regional artist alongside a national artist, and the international, French artists. It evens the playing field. I also think this [the exhibition] shows how the school invests in art literacy, that this show even exists in Milwaukee because it took such a great effort to bring it to the city. Inova has a small to non-existent budget so a show of this scale demonstrates the dedication of UWM to bring it here.
Q: How does this exhibition affect what art means to you?
A: Art has always moved me, and my passion. It’s [art is] living at its most complete, the highest level. Art becomes a way to process the world, process it with other people, a form of communication, sometimes confrontational but non-violent. It’s about finding more ways to communicate with these people we share the earth with.
