News @ the Peck School of the Arts

INOVA - MKE This Week: Celebrating the Past in the Present

By Hannah McCarthy
June 4, 2013
ThirdCoast Digest

Music
UWM’s Fine Arts Quartet will play with guest cellist Denis Brott this Sunday, June 9. The performance will include Italian Serenade in G Major by Wolf, String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10 by Debussy, and String Quintet in C major, D 956 by Schubert. This the first of a series of four free shows by the Fine Arts Quartet celebrating the Year of the Arts, but tickets are still required and can be ordered by calling the box office at 414-229-4308. This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts.

Visual Art
The work of Martha Wilson comes to Inova, beginning with an opening reception this Friday, June 7. There will be an artist talk during this reception, discussing Wilson’s use of multimedia to present her concepts of fluid gender roles and imagined manipulation. This exhibit runs through August 13 and is free to the public.

Read the full article at ThirdCoast Digest.

INOVA - Art critic Lori Waxman gives her reviews in public

By Mary Louise Schumacher
May 26, 2013
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Culture is more than an enveloping painting on a museum wall or the confounding installation at an upstart gallery. It exists in the way we look at, talk about and express ourselves about art.

The idea that the writing of art criticism qualifies as the making of culture certainly fits the professional practice of Lori Waxman, a regular freelance critic for the Chicago Tribune and a frequent writer for publications such as Artforum.

For her "60 wrd/min art critic" project, Waxman puts herself out there the way artists often do by performing her role as a critic in a gallery space. She brings the looking at and writing about art together and into the open. She writes short, serious reviews live and in-person while artists wait for the results. Each piece is completed in 25 minutes or less, signed like a work of art might be, and is given free of charge.

Read the full article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

 

INOVA - Lori Waxman's "60 wrd/min art critic" comes to Inova

By Mary Louise Schumacher
May 22, 2013
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

... Lori Waxman, a regular freelance critic for the Chicago Tribune, a frequent writer for publications such as Artform and an art historian, not only writes tight and serious reviews, she puts herself out there like an artist and does it in a gallery space. She writes live, in-person reviews while artists wait for the results. Each piece is completed in 25 minutes or less, signed like a work of art might be and given free of charge. 

Her "60 wrd/min art critic" project brings the looking at art and writing about it together and into the open, in a sort of wonderfully confusing reversal of roles between the artist and critic. 

This exercise in short-form criticism is a gutsy and generous project, an artwork unto itself. I am sort of amazed by it. Waxman will perform “60 wrd/min art critic” at Inova, 2155 N. Prospect Ave., for three days, Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 to 5 p.m. each day. Artists can make appointments by emailingcritic@60wrdmin.org. Walk-in hours will be Sunday from 2:30 to 5 p.m.

Read the full article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

 

Take 5 with Jim Plaisted of the North Ave. BID: CRE Guide

By Sean Ryan
Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee
May 16, 2013

Jim Plaisted since 1999 has been executive director of the East Side Business Improvement District, which centers around East North Avenue in Milwaukee...

...Plaisted answers our questions on these new developments, other businesses moving to the area and the district’s image as a college neighborhood.Q: How and why are you working to change perceptions of the East Side as a college neighborhood?...

A: We are promoting some of the positive aspects of living near a university. Traditionally, university neighborhoods tend to be the most energetic and eclectic in nature. It’s where new ideas emerge, talent is groomed and where there’s a demand for things like an art house cinema, specialty shops, coffeehouses and restaurants like Beans & Barley. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts in the Kenilworth Building has a great impact on the neighborhood. It buzzes with artists, music and film students, animation wizards and theater people. They get their fuel from this neighborhood, and in turn they energize the area.

But there’s more to the East Side than students. There’s a whole population of university faculty, young professionals and longtime residents that call the East Side home. They also have a strong influence on the businesses that are attracted to our commercial area. It’s no accident that Whole Foods chose this neighborhood for its only Milwaukee store....

Visit The Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee to read the full article.

Avant Garde Coffeehouse remembered at Inova

By Jessica Sattell

ThirdCoast Daily

May 1, 2013

2101-2111 N. Prospect Avenue — better known as the Bertelson Building — is the stunning Mission-style 1927 gem just south of UWM’s Institute of Visual Arts. Currently, it houses tenants including Mystery One Bookshop and Allium, a bar and restaurant that describes itself as an “avant-garde” meeting place in a nod to the building’s artistic roots. But from 1962 to 1968, 2111 was the very center of Milwaukee’s folk/blues revival and a hotbed of all kinds of art reflecting that time’s explosive cultural change. It was better known as the Avant Garde Coffeehouse...

Visit ThirdCoast Daily for the full article.

INOVA - The A.V. Club’s life-altering guide to spring Gallery Night

By Maureen Post
April 18, 2013
A.V. Club Milwaukee

Let’s be honest: there’s only so much one can handle of winter, dark days, and all-around dismal gloom. So, as Milwaukee preps itself for the transformative properties only spring can bring, The A.V. Club presents its guide of Gallery Night (April 19-20) gigs that allow you to escape—even if just mentally—and remind you that place, time, and personality can always be re-imagined. Avant-garde diversions of fantasy, costumed imagination, and superhero-style alter egos—this is your chance to digress from the confines of reality. Regardless of fact or fiction, these Gallery Night artists visualize exactly what could, should, and can be.

• UWM’s Peck School of the Arts takes location and culture to heart as students re-imagine the East Side’s Avant Garde Coffeehouse of the ’60s. Employing photography, ephemera, video, sound, and live music performance, the show embodies the artists, performers, and regulars who dotted the coffeehouse’s changing scene for years. Find the show at the INOVA Gallery through May 12, Friday 5-9 p.m., Saturday 12-5p.m.

Read the full article at A.V. Club Milwaukee.

Art! Music! Film! Take a trip back in time to the Avant Garde Coffeehouse

By Dori Zori
April 17, 2013
88Nine Radio Milwaukee

Milwaukee has a rich musical history and the Peck School of the Arts is doing their part to make sure our present and future generations don't forget it.

From 1962 to 1968, the Avant Garde Coffeehouse, located at 2111 North Prospect, was a center for the folk/blues revival in Wisconsin. Not only did the coffeehouse host local and nationally know musicians, but it was also a hotbed for experimental films, poetry readings and performance art.

Milwaukee has a rich musical history and the Peck School of the Arts is doing their part to make sure our present and future generations don't forget it.The Finger-Style Guitar Program at the Peck School of the Arts collaborated on a new project to tell this story through theater, dance, art and music.

"Meet Me At The Avant Garde" is a play/musical writtenby UWM Grad Fly Steffens. "The play is about the art and the music that was there from the perspective of two different generations experiencing the music at the same time" says Steffens. "There's so much original research and stories relayed by people who where there."

View the full article and listen to the podcast at 88Nine Radio Milwaukee. 

INOVA - On Tap Today: Not middle of the road

By Mary Louise Schumacher
April 10, 2013
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wednesday. It may be the middle of the week, but here's hoping it's not a middle-of-the-road kind of day.

With that in mind, you might consider a blast from the past, and exhibit about the once formiddable Avant Garde Coffeehouse, a giant used book sale, a beer sampling, some yoga or an art-and-tea combo deal.

Read the full article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

INOVA - Revisiting Milwaukee’s Avant Garde Coffeehouse Inova’s series of ’60s flashbacks

By Peggy Sue Dunigan
April 9, 2013
Express Milwaukee

Revisit the grassroots of blues, folk and fingerstyle guitar this April at UW-Milwaukee’s Inova Gallery with the exhibition “The Avant Garde Coffeehouse Project.” In the 1960s, on the cusp of the counterculture, the Avant Garde Coffeehouse (2111 N. Prospect Ave.) was a venue for experimental art and films, performance, poetry and music. It was the local center for the folk/blues revival and encouraged the emerging fingerstyle guitar playing. This provides a link to UWM, which sponsors the only university-level coursework for fingerstyle guitar training in the world.

This year, the Avant Garde Coffeehouse and UWM’s Peck School of the Arts share their 50th anniversary. In a collaboration between departments, the Peck School researched and documented the history of this important venue.

The fascinating retrospective includes artifacts, film, photographs, recordings and videos on display through May 12. While the exhibition opened April 5, there will be special performances and programs throughout the next six weeks at the Inova Gallery and the Peck School of the Arts. One of the highlights will be the world premiere of Meet Me at the Avant Garde, a play written by Peck School alumnae Fly Steffens, April 26-May 5. For a complete event schedule, visit yoa.uwm.edu.

Read the full article at Express Milwaukee. 

 

Milwaukee Artist Resource Network moves to Third Ward

By Mary Louise Schumacher
March 29, 2013
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Artists Resource Network, the leading organization for supporting individual creative professionals in Milwaukee, has decided to relocate from Wauwatosa to the Historic Third Ward in downtown Milwaukee.

Next month, the group will become a tenant at Plaid Tuba, an entrepreneurial collective, on the 6th floor of the Marshall Building, a hub for artists and galleries. The move will make MARN more accessible to other arts organizations, venues, artists and audiences downtown. 

Collaborations have become an increasingly important component of MARN's mission. The group has worked with the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts, the Mandel Group Creative Studio and other organizations to create events and workshops.

Read the full article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.