temporary contemporary

Socializing at the gallery: recent openings.

2007-08-24T00:26:00.000-05:00

See what you've missed! Here are some snapshot's from the early August opening of the show by Mary DiBiasio and Michael Roberts:

...and from last week's Tiffany Knopow and Lynn Tomaszewski's opening:

August 17th: Tiffany Knopow and Lynn Tomaszewski

2007-08-14T01:21:00.001-05:00

Join us on Friday, August 17th anytime between 4 and 9 pm for a new exhibition:
Tiffany Knopow (print installation) and Lynn Tomaszewski (video, drawing).

Tiffany Knopow and Lynn Tomaszewski are involved in collecting, processing and organizing large amounts of data and information. Both artists often work at the intersection of disciplines, moving fluidly between two-, three- and four-dimensional. Their practice reveals connections and patterns among objects and phenomena that are commonly peripheral to a casual gaze, either due to the objects’ seeming uselessness or their sheer scale and complexity.

Tiffany Knopow’s subtle, minimal prints are a mean of recording the accumulation of abject, mundane and often ephemeral materials that are frequently discarded or forgotten. Hair Shed Lengths records the combed-out hair collected between September 26, 2006 and February 28, 2007. Tiffany’s practice suggests obsession, compulsion, organization, and persistent desire for order while still hinting at the abject.
Lynn Tomaszewski crosses the disciplines of art and science to make video, installation, and 2D work. The large quantities of information or objects, such as patterns of motion in space, genetic data or maps, are often presented with minimal interventions in order to reveal the connections and patterns inherent to those all-encompassing collections. In the new video You are Made of Stars the artist depicts constant movement underlaying our existence, the distant result of the big bang that generated all the existing matter in the universe.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Tiffany Knopow is a Wisconsin native and now resides in Burlington, WI. She received her BFA in Printmaking from UW-Madison and recently – her Masters of Art from UW-Milwaukee. This fall she is working towards completing her Masters of Fine Arts. Tiffany has shown her work locally, and nationally in exhibits such as FORWARD 2007 at Charles Allis Art Museum and Printmaking Currents 2006 at Prints Arts Northwest. She is also UW-Milwaukee’s current nominee for the 2007 National Dedalus Foundation Grant. An additional source of great personal pride was Tiffany’s guest judge appointment for the annual Spam-O-Rama cook-off held in Wausau, WI.

Lynn Tomaszewski is a Milwaukee-based artist who has exhibited widely for the past 15 years. Her work is in the collection of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN and the Center for Contemporary Art in Sacramento, CA. She received a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

New exhibition this Friday.

2007-07-31T09:38:00.002-05:00

Mary DiBiasio (print hybrids) and Michael Roberts (mixed-media)
Opening: August 3rd, reception 6–9 pm, gallery open at 4 pm; through August 11th.

Mary DiBiasio’s print-based works and Michael Roberts’ mixed-media pieces juxtapose geometric forms with gestural marks and painterly application, implying an organizing presence of a human mind within the realms of organic and natural. In their abstract works the lyrical and the intuitive are complemented by the commonplace and the rational, and physical and psychological spaces are intrinsically linked.

Mary DiBiasio utilizes collograph technique to create hybrid works which are constructed over extended periods of many months. Her practice suggests a never-ending, natural cycle in which potential finished product, a print, becomes a paper matrix for subsequent pieces. Through multiple repetitions of this process combined with cutting, layering, and continuous re-printing, DiBiasio creates intricate collages – infinitely complex structures reminiscent of weathered maps, satellite views or archeological excavations.

Michael Roberts uses multitude of media and techniques inherent to the practices of drawing, painting and printmaking in order to create quiet, constrained representations and symbols of time. A limited pallette of rich blacks, white and grays, scarcely intermitted with oranges and rusts, and basic geometric forms, primarily circles and semi-circles, are combined together to render subtle visual allusions to moon phases, astrolabes and celestial maps. Through these symbols, Roberts investigates time as it manifests itself materially in the processes of keeping and recording, as well as in natural and man-made markers.

About the artists:
For the past five years Mary DiBiasio has been a resident of Milwaukee, and has recently moved back to Chicago with a BFA from MIAD, a 7th Floor Studio, and teaching experience through MIAD, Pius XI High School, and Gallery 37. She has printed through MIAD and Bunker Press in Milwaukee, The Chicago Academy for the Arts and Anchor Graphics in Chicago. Her current intentions are to earn insurance through a well paying job, attend a graduate program in printmaking, and continue her investigations through the collagraph printmaking technique.

Michael Roberts grew up in the border area between Michigan and Indiana. He has lived in Chicago and St. Louis and is now a full time resident of Milwaukee’s East side, with his wife and daughter. Michael has an Associate’s degree in Fine Arts from St Louis Community College at Florissant Valley and a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He has exhibited work though the Mid-West of the United States.

Gallery Night recommendations for All of You, Good Folk!

2007-07-26T13:56:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah... There seems to be a lot of stuff on the agenda, but among all the cute and fluffy, I decided to fish out some events which though not necessarily widely written about or publicized, might be very well worth your precious time.

1. Visit us at temporary contemporary (of course - how could you not!) and experience our very temporary and very ephemeral wall drawings and other works.

2. There is a party, and not an ordinary one either. The Green Gallery (631 E. Center St. 3rd floor) is hosting a drawing/glue party, which will run (roughly): Friday July 27, 6-10pm and Saturday July 28, 1-5pm,
with Peter Barrickman's work in the main space, Randy Russell's work will be in the John Riepenhoff Experience and Kerrie Welsh's video will be in the Video Arcade. We think you might love it!

3. Eriks Johnson is showing his work at Rosenblatt Gallery (above Artasia) in the 3rd Ward, right en route all the craziness that is taking place down there (if you choose to participate, that is). Don't miss it! 3rd Ward might be worth a trip just for this show.

4. However, if you do happen to be in the 3rd Ward after all, swing also by MIAD to see photographs by Francis Ford in his exhibition titled Friends, Lovers, & Fellow Travelers.

5. At Dean Jensen Gallery (downtown, Water Street) you can encounter Cakes, Berries, an Opera House, a Fat Lady & You Name It... a group exhibition featuring works by Wafaa Bilal, Kyle Fitzpatrick, Gary Komarin and Drew Malcolm. How can you skip an offering like this? (Seriously, though, there are few such dedicated painters as Kyle and few artists who can bring tradition, history and technology as closely together as Wafaa.)

6. And despite of the fact that the Haggerty Museum seems perennially out of the way, you simply MUST see new print projects by the Amazing Lady (or Great Dame as Mary Louise called her), Louise Bourgeois.

That's it! So much and so little at the same time.

Dorota and Keith's show

2007-07-25T19:50:00.001-05:00

Shiny Stuff by Keith Nelson

Blue Screen (construction chalk and latex directly on the wall) by Keith Nelson

Auf verlorenem Posten stehen (latex, graphite, ink, glow in the dark paint) by Dorota Biczel Nelson; includes print series trans/form/disperse I

Dorota Biczel Nelson and Keith Nelson both utilize similar visual language rooted in neo-geometric abstraction and post-minimalism to address specific issues pertinent to the contemporary conditions of perception, visual experience and knowledge. For the show at temporary contemporary both artists are going to create site-specific work. Keith is working with chalk line, beautiful, but extremely impermanent medium, appropriate for the ephemeral venue. Dorota is developing her polygonal crystalline structures into a huge organism spanning a handful of walls and juxtaposing it with smaller "contained" print series.

Keith Nelson's new, elusive, optically vibrant acrylic paintings operate as simultaneously stable and unstable shimmering fields combining highly organized grid structure with random and anomalous elements. Due to their low definition qualities and resistance to immediate comprehension these paintings ultimately act as an antidote to a quick, passing glance that dominates majority of today's visual experiences dictated by contemporary mass media.

Dorota Biczel Nelson's diagrammatic, polygonal patterns allude to crystalline, molecular or cellular structures. With their pseudo-scientific appearance they attempt to represent the mental process of perceptual, physical and conceptual trials of describing and understanding reality. As the pattern's seeming systematic development is disrupted by mutation and chance, the work hovers between radical philosophical doubt and utopian belief in complete and perfect knowledge.

Temporary Contemporary on Gallery Night

2007-07-24T23:49:00.000-05:00

The gallery will be open on Friday, July 27th from 4 to 9 pm.
If you haven't had a chance to do so, stop by to see the show by the founders, Dorota & Keith Nelson.

Night gallery continues

2007-07-15T23:53:00.001-05:00

Throughout past weekend we continued with the night gallery.
Harvey's Opgenorth Consequences of Decadence illuminated the KK storefront while Seth Crawford's Beer Can Pyramid placed right in the window of the gallery was a particularly poignant display on the weekend of South Shore Frolics.

Seth and Harvey's Opening Fiesta

2007-07-10T22:02:00.001-05:00

If you didn't have a chance to visit us, see what you have missed.
And if you want to see the show, please remember:
we're open the upcoming weekend, Friday (July 13): 4-6 pm, Saturday (July 14): 1-5 pm.

It is worth pointing out that most of our guests (and ourselves) moved later that night to THE GREEN GALLERY to see Peter Barrickman's new work: Pictures with Voice-over.

Harvey Opgenorth and Seth Crawford -- July 6th

2007-07-08T01:33:00.000-05:00

Louis Vuitton Duck, Night Lite and Safety Chair by Seth Crawford, Consequences of Decadence (modified mirror disco ball) by Harvey Opgenorth.

My Dixie Wrecked by Opgenorth, OK Suitcase, and yet again, LV Duck and Safety Chair by Crawford.

Museum Reminders - A Post-it Notes Series and Mystifying Oracle by Opgenorth.

Beer Can Pyramid by Seth Crawford.

temporary contemporary announces its second exhibition:
Seth Crawford and Harvey Opgenorth
Opening: Friday, July 6th, 6–9 pm

Seth Crawford and Harvey Opgenorth appropriate commercially produced objects and commonly available materials to create visual puns and unexpected situations challenging our habitual notions and convictions. Crawford’s work investigates shaping identities and often complex and contradictory relationships between actual pleasure and aesthetic taste in the culture of accumulation, over-abundance of consumer goods, mass entertainment and gigantic income disparities. Opgenorth seeks to refine the viewers’ perceptions and awareness, particularly that related to their own social behaviors and roles. His new Museum Reminders - a Post-it Note Seriesques questions the routine that a galley or a museum visit has become and the attitude we take on as viewers. Both Crawford’s and Opgenort’s works are capable of triggering a variety of responses: from amusement and surprise, through irritation and confusion to final revelation. In any case, they never fail to address the most acute issues the contemporary culture faces today.

Currie's projection runs at night!

2007-07-08T01:11:00.002-05:00

Opening, June 22nd

2007-07-08T00:59:00.001-05:00

Documentation of Currie's and Jensen's ehxhibition.

2007-07-08T00:51:00.000-05:00

From left to right: Man's Ruin by Darryl Jensen, Reduction Point by Jamal Currie, and fragment of Resurrection by Jensen.

Reduction Point, Resurrection and Epiphany by Jensen.

“temporary contemporary” opens its doors on Friday, June 22nd, 6–-9 pm with a two person exhibition of JAMAL CURRIE (video/video installation) and DARRYL JENSEN (print). Currie’s and Jensen’s works with their cinematic references pay tribute to the primary function of the space the gallery is located in, now defunct (and soon to be restored) Avalon Theater. Their grainy, pixelated images also challenge our expectations of high-definition, operating on the level of bare recognizability. The viewer is put in a precarious situation in which despair and hope, repulsion and delight, danger and safety are separated only by a very fine line defined by limitations of our perception. Currie’s video installation Reduction Point reconfigures fragments of his previous video works (also on display) into a high-contrast low-resolution projection. This shimmering, ghostly piece plays with the basics of the medium and the notions of what is essential in order to perceive, while simultaneously creating a poetic sequence of images, in which dream and nightmare, fascinating and repulsive weave in and out of each other. Jensen’s brand new large-scale print installation Resurrection (6' x 12') utilizes a composite of movie stills to suggest a hopeful, perhaps romantic, encounter. It simultaneously contrasts with and provides a punctuation to his photo-lithographic diptychs which juxtapose stills of black and white B-movies in order to speak of entrapments and distresses of interpersonal relationships. Jensen’s pieces dialogue with one another to create a larger narrative of failures, hopes and redemptions we encounter as much on a movie screen as in our personal lives.

Darryl Jensen and Jamal Currie install the inaugural show.

2007-07-08T00:34:00.001-05:00

Darryl Jensen, print media artist and master printer extra ordinaire and Jamal Currie, videographer and visual artist.

The neighborhood kids had a million questions.

Avalon Theater store front alive again!

2007-07-07T23:00:00.002-05:00

Keith and I had an eye on this space for several months. The empty store front right on Kinnickinnic, a block away from our house, several blocks from the studio seemed a perfect spot for a gallery. Who could resist a location on the main artery and with such high visibility? Plus, the space itself is curious: on one hand it fulfills all the requirements of a white box, while at the same time is full of unexpected architectural details. It was unnerving to see it under-used. Finally, almost miraculously, we were able to contact Lee Barczak, the current owner of the Avalon. Believe it or not, as the result of our meeting we got the store front at 2469 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. to use until the renovation of the building starts.
The idea for the gallery was simple: to show as many great emerging artists as possible within the constrained amount of time. Hence, we devised a formula: a two-person exhibit every two weeks throughout the summer. Temporary contemporary is a dual play on words. Firstly, it speaks to the impermanence of the venue, secondly (if you haven't figured that out yourself yet) it also implies the very transient nature of contemporary art. We decided to invite first of all these artists who despite of having significant bodies of work that we admire has not shown at all or not in the long time. We chose to focus on the diverse artists whose work fits neither into traditional model supported by the city's established galleries nor into affordable, pop-ish mode championed by many younger venues.

Please, stop by and see what comes out of it!
The gallery is open on Fridays from 4 to 6 pm and 6 pm to 9 pm (on opening Fridays)
and every Saturday between 1 and 5 pm, or by appointment.