Mari Eastman 

Fan Art

March 21 – April 20, 2024

Broadway is pleased to announce Fan Art, an exhibition of new oil paintings by Chicago-based artist Mari Eastman. Working in small scale on panel and canvas, Eastman has created a sequence of appropriated portraits, still-life fragments, and depictions of animals that, taken together, begin to accumulate a curious momentum and meaning.

On the occasion of his eighth book, High Entertainment, published by Reliable Copy, a Bangalore-based, artist-led publishing house, artist and writer David Robbins answers questions lobbed by Milwaukee filmmaker Andrew Swant. The two discuss Robbins’s concept of High Entertainment, a synthesis developed in writings and artworks across three decades.

Sky Hopinka (1984) is an experimental filmmaker, photographer and poet. He is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, a Native American Tribe from Wisconsin. The transmission of accounts, traditions and struggles of indigenous American peoples is at the heart of his work. 

Peter Barrickman is what many would call a painter’s painter, a label that means little on its face, but also suggests an abiding interest in the medium’s deeper possibilities. Even in its sloppiness the term implies a certain commitment to the potential of the medium beyond superficial results, and a reciprocity with other practitioners. His current exhibition “Untitled Melodies” at Green Gallery through March 1 is a gift to those painters and confirms that one artist’s faith in his internal pursuit might lead, with persistence, to another’s visual salvation.

The 12 paintings in the exhibition operate between representation and abstraction. This in itself isn’t notable as most painters working today migrate between these realms to some degree; however, Barrickman’s particular approach arrives at a seductive ambiguity that pushes each mode aside on its way to a space of its own. It’s a space beholden to neither and satisfying both. The works in the exhibition evolve from three basic natural conceits: winter landscapes, fulfillment centers, and fires.

William Shatner is that rare thing: an actor you can think about apart from his roles. His iconicity isn’t that of the movie star; however many movies he’s acted in (seventy some), he never became one. He is, instead, a creature of television. Following a decade of journeyman work in that medium, in the mid-60s, he rocketed to fame as Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship Enterprise, as part of an ensemble cast in Star Trek, a sci-fi, outer-space series that was at once earnestly ground-breaking in its socially conscious storylines; visually distinctive (all those candy-colored monochrome interiors!); and charmingly cheesy. From that launch pad, without access to genuine movie-star iconicity – you’ve either got it or you haven’t – Shatner achieved his own fame by other means. Rather than coloring within the settled lines of the Hollywood model in the manner of, say, Clint Eastwood or Cary Grant, Shatner jettisoned the cover of make believe and traveled his act around the whole of pop culture, sampling, dabbling, collaborating, hustling, and laughing all the way to the next gig. Now, the audience’s eye follows not a series of icon-modeling fictions, but the real-world adventures of the beloved William Shatner as he ping-pongs inside the system of show business.

Given my interest in painting, I found myself going to Milwaukee to see an exhibition that promised to be taking the pulse of contemporary American painting—all the works in it had been made in the last five years. A show of fifty paintings by fifty different painters who the curators claimed were defining the field of contemporary painting seemed a bold move, amidst the general confusion that has been generated by AI, market manipulation, auction house publicity, critical pronouncements, and a general cultural malaise that has lingered since the 1990s. How could any critic resist such a challenge; what could an exhibition indexed to the simple subject of “Painting,” offer? Whatever the curators’ intentions, 50 Paintings seemed to be a brave attempt to bring some discernment to a confused situation.

MILWAUKEE — One of the most unique art galleries in Milwaukee is hiding in plain sight.

The Green Gallery is a free commercial, conceptual, and contemporary art gallery inside of a mid-century building reminiscent of Americana drive-thru car culture.

"I originally started the gallery basically to serve my community. I was seeing amazing artists in this community that weren’t getting opportunities to show at other commercial galleries or other institutions in the region. And I thought as an artist myself, if I’m having this experience, I know others are too," John Riepenhoff, The Green Gallery owner and artist, said.

High Entertainment by David Robbins argues for a category of cultural production that combines the experimental ethos of art with the accessibility of entertainment. High Entertainment’eschews the specialized, exclusionary language on which art has increasingly come to depend, in favor of a communication model that extends and elevates the pop grammars to which we are exposed from our earliest years.

Bringing together a selection of essays, an interview, and an artwork which explore the development of this framework, this book touches upon four decades of Robbins’ engagement with the idea of High Entertainment—starting from the 1980s, through its moment of clearest resolution with the advent of digital technology, all the way to the present.

Published by reliable copy, 2023. 120 pages.

When the contemporary artist Mariah Robertson first started playing around in her darkroom with light-sensitive paper, hand-applying chemicals and trying out different exposure techniques, a whole new world opened up. Colors bled and burst. Streaks and specks were features, not bugs. All the carefully laid out rules of traditional photography now felt mutable. “I thought, This is totally insane,” she says. “I had no idea this was possible.”

In the 15 or so years since those first happy accidents, Robertson has honed her practice of camera-less photography, creating ferocious photograms with explosions of pigment that slingshot you to another dimension. Thirteen such transportive works go on view today at Van Doren Waxter in New York. The featured photograms in “Everything counts & local reality,” all made this year using a type of photographic paper called RA4, conjure distant galaxies.

Featuring works by Christian Boltanski, Robert Filliou, Lyle Ashton Harris, Cary Leibowitz, Sherrie Levine, Liliana Porter, David Robbins, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Lorna Simpson, James Van Der Zee, and David Wojnarowicz. Portraits depict truths, fictions, and spaces between. Aspirations, desires, and, sometimes in retrospect, faults show through. The works in “Whom,” made over the past 100 years, each engage issues of identity, perception, time, change, and control

A gripping connection is made when Kaoru Arima’s portraits along the Green Gallery’s long, marquee wall meet our eyes. Their gazes are piercing, event haunting. Their manner is expressive, and the paint application juicy and loose. They flirt for a second with the legacies of soul capturers like Alice Neel, David Hockney, and Max Beckman. However, as time is spent with each individual 25 x 20 inch-portrait, their individuality begins to dissolve. And as soon as it does, the presence of the portraitist begins to grow in its place. It does this so incrementally, and so reciprocally, that it seems to address a deeper psychological phenomenon about the relationship between artists and subjects in general. 

Grief is viscous. It so often cannot be contained in a singular vessel, and when it is expressed in art, that singular grief belonging to an artist might bleed through the canvas, and, maybe gently, maybe violently, flow into the viewer. To consume art made as a product of grief can very often mean, even in the smallest of ways, to become a part of that grief. To participate in art made out of loss is to dampen oneself with that aqueous sadness, to gain, to lose, all at once.

James Cohan is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Michelle Grabner, on view from June 28 through July 28 at 48 Walker Street. This is Grabner’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Wednesday, June 28 from 6-8 PM.

Philip Martin Gallery is pleased to present, “FIGURETHROUGHCONTOUR, DRIFT," an online exhibition of new works on paper by Berlin-based artist, Katy Cowan. The rich surfaces and deep spaces of Katy Cowan's works-on-paper explore color, line, shape, texture and pictorial volume.

Sky Hopinka has been named one of two winners of the 2023 Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel.

The Green Gallery is pleased to announce its participation on Platform for Alt-Basel. We will be  presenting works by Dominique Knowles. Two works by the artist are featured for a limited time through Platform's site.

Opening reception on Saturday, June 3 

In the newest series of paintings by Dominique Knowles, scale and gesture are framed within conditions of intimacy and loss. The exhibition’s framework was spurred by the artist’s desire to honor his horse that passed away in 2021. His ongoing period of mourning results from the sacred relationship between rider and horse, a connection marked by trust and reciprocity. Knowles compares the painting of a horse to the brushing of one. The mode of composing his works mimics that of equine care, from the wide sweeps on large surfaces to concentrated performances on smaller ones. To feel the bristles glide across a body and effectively translate this requires the mining of corporeal memory. A poetics of mark-making is thus established and remains integral to Knowles’s practice. Observe the delicacy of each brushstroke, as he lovingly painted these objects of grief and desire.

Garnering widespread attention for her work that combines conceptual grit, humor and social commentary, Martine Syms has emerged in recent years as one of the defining artists of her generation.

The Green Gallery is pleased to announce its participation on Platform for the month of May. We are presenting works by Mari Eastman and Peter Barrickman. Four works by each artist are featured for this limited time through Platform's site.

The Villa Terrace Art Museum invites you to experience the inaugural “Mestiere Biennale,” a juried craft and decorative arts exhibition highlighting five Greater Milwaukee artists who exhibit mastery in their discipline. The exhibition builds upon the legacy of craft and decorative arts in Wisconsin. Presenting contemporary takes on historic craft and celebrating craft as artmaking, “Mestiere” highlights the continued relevance of craft to our lives and to art.

Sculpture Milwaukee today announced John Riepenhoff will serve as curator for the 2023 exhibition, which will open this summer and be on view through October 2024. Now in its seventh year, Sculpture Milwaukee is an annual outdoor exhibition of public sculpture in downtown Milwaukee. The organization serves as a catalyst for community engagement, economic development, and creative placemaking.

Claire Voon for the New York Times on Barely Fair

link to article here

FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art is an exhibition comprised of artist commissions, performances, films, and public programs that will launch its inaugural edition in July of 2018. An American City: Eleven Cultural Exercises, in collaboration with museums, civic institutions, and alternative spaces across Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin, will showcase an ambitious roster of projects, including performance and theater throughout the landscape and built environment. With a roster of national, international and area-based artists at all points in their career, FRONT will examine the ever-changing and politically urgent conditions of an American city.

Michelle Grabner is the Artistic Director and some participating artists include: Paul Druecke, Sky Hopinka, Microlights Cinema, and Martine Syms among others.

Nathalie Karg and the Green Gallery are delighted to present a special one week exhibition of new paintings by the Milwaukee-based painter Peter Barrickman. The show takes its name, Elwood Arms, from an apartment building in Milwaukee that was home to countless artists, writers, and musicians, and was afectionately nicknamed after its caretaker and most senior tenant.

The show is comprised of eleven acrylic and oil paintings inspired by buildings such as Elwood Arms and their high-ceilinged lobbies. The transient space of a lobby—a place of continual coming and going—becomes a metaphor for the open narrative potential of painting. Considering the ways a painting simultaneously denies and allows reading, Barrickman’s continual experiments with alternating forms and repeating colors create a transitional visual space in which the public expression of the artist meets with the private experience of the viewer. Put in the artist’s own words, “it is a formal renewal that serves to clarify and awaken the subject.”

The show will be accompanied by the release of the artist book, Burnt Plastic (Magazine, 2018).

Arts Center curators collaborated with Polly Morris, executive director of the Lynden Sculpture Garden and administrator of the fellowship, in selecting eight past recipients of the Nohl Fellowship to participate in the exhibition. The gallery will feature new works by Cecelia Condit, Kim Miller, Sonja Thomsen, Sheila Held, Sarah Luther, Anne Kingsbury, Maggie Sasso, and Robin Jebavy, and Mary Nohl pieces from the Arts Center’s collection.

John Michael Kohler Arts Center , 608 New York Ave, Sheboygan, WI 53081

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