Love Letters

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

The Bronze Fonz Debacle

Mike Brenner, owner of Hotcakes Gallery and big-time mover and shaker in Milwaukee's art community, sends a seething, vitriolic letter to every major media outlet and art informer in Southeastern Wisconsin vowing to shut Hotcakes' doors and leave the city for good should a life-size statue of the Fonz be erected in our fair downtown. It registered like Old Testament prophecy, with Brenner's foot-stomping, foaming-at-the-mouth, head-turning-360-degrees registering somewhere on a scale between "Shut up" and "What a creep." You know, the kind of crazed clarion that always comes to devastating fruition in the end.

The project bears very little exposition here: Visit Milwaukee, formerly the Convention and Visitor's Bureau, is quite close to its goal of raising $85,000 in private funds to put a statue of Henry Winkler as Arthur Fonzarelli of Happy Days somewhere along the Riverwalk. In the old days, people used to construct monuments of people of influence or historical importance -- leaders, war heroes, city founders, martyrs, saints, and every once in a while the visage of a crazed dictator longing for a gigantic, oxidizing, bird-shat-upon place in history (many of those statues, appropriately, have since been torn down). On a southward stroll down Prospect Avenue, you will come upon three of these statues in a row, first of Scottish bard Robert Burns, then of viking Leif Erickson, and finally of fur-trader and Milwaukee father Solomon Juneau, his musket poised. On the back of my ankle I have a tattoo of an iconic Detroit image, the 1950s Marshall Fredericks' statue The Spirit of Detroit, a big shirtless bronze man, seated, holding aloft a small family in one hand and a bright golden sun in another, emanating the impervious, ineffable rays of God.

But the canned responses that Dave Fantle of Visit Milwaukee's PR team has CC'd to everyone from Mike Brenner to the intelligent, considered team of experts at Susceptible to Images to Milwaukee Art Museum CEO David Gordon, arguably the heaviest weight in Milwaukee's rather little art world, makes it clear that the Bronze Fonz isn't like those "other" statues. Yes, we hear you, Visit Milwaukee. We know all about Chicago's Bob Newhart, Minneapolis' Mary Tyler Moore, Manhattan's Ralph Kramden (all of which were pitched and placed in a promotional project by the TV Land network). You have only reminded us that they exist every SINGLE time someone wonders why on EARTH we would put a Bronze Fonz on the Riverwalk. We know that you are casting the statue locally and employing a "local" artist (he's from Lake Mills -- a full 55 miles from Milwaukee -- not such a great distance, but a stretch when it is considered just how many hundreds of artists live in the city of Milwaukee, proper, or even in the county, or the next county over). You keep trying to tell us that this is "pop" art, not "high" art, the art equivalent of burgers and custard.

The hidden message here is that this is not an art project, but a marketing project (as most tourism, at its heart, constitutes marketing), and it's marketing targeted at people who don't live here. The Fonz is not here to edify us, give us pause, or present us with something beautiful; he is here to sell us to people in other cities who are thinking about spending the weekend here, bringing their convention here, stopping in Milwaukee on their way to the Dells or Door County. He is here so that Visit Milwaukee can put him on the cover of the brochures they send out all over the region and give to professional tour planners as a way to say, "See? Milwaukee is fun! Milwaukee is just like you think it is!"

And here's the thing: it's not even a good marketing project. It's uninspired and unimaginative. There are so many more amazing things about Milwaukee than goddamn Happy Days. If we're going for "contrived cultural significance," why not build a statue of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is a real person with real accomplishments, is a lot taller and more statuesque than Henry Winkler, and although he is not from here, nor does he live here any longer, actually had something to do with the city as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks, and was also in Airplane, which was written by three uproarious guys from Milwaukee? Why not bronze a 5'7'' can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which is the coolest thing that people in Portland, Oregon think Milwaukee has going for it? I have this crazy vision of a giant, ten-times-larger-than-life typewriter (invented in Milwaukee), a big piece of interactive art that kids can climb all over, as recognizable as the cherry on the spoon in the Walker Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis (which is way, way, way, more recognizable than the Mary Tyler Moore statue). I would love to take my future family to see a statue of James Cameron, lynching survivor and founder of America's Black Holocaust Museum, but we're going for fun photo-op here, not depressing, unattractive, brochure-inappropriate civil rights history. Then again, Washington DC has a humongous Einstein statue that is wonderful to cuddle up to for the camera; he's a delight, a very positive and charming piece of art, and of obvious human significance. I love the Einstein statue.

And then there's the question of permanence: I didn't watch very much Happy Days growing up; the impression I get from most other people my age is that they didn't either, and that most of us couldn't give a lick of care about the Fonz. By the time we have kids, they will be emotionally uninvolved not only with Arthur Fonzarelli as a character but with the whole bucolic-1950s, greaser-cool, life-before-the-hippies-and-the-blacks dream of Happy Days. It's confounding. Why would we choose to pay permanent tribute to something with such a questionable shelf-life?

But Visit Milwaukee has spoken: they are putting up a Bronze Fonz, whether you like it or not, and they do not care what members of the Milwaukee arts community think about it. Save your genius public art ideas for another group of private investors and another private piece of land. It's tempting to think that this is just not a big deal, that we are just in a fluff about this because there's nothing else to argue about in these cold weeks, and maybe that will prove to be the case. I don't think the fires of hell will rain down when the Fonz goes up, but I am concerned about the weight that is given to the opinions of our arts leaders, the face we are putting on our city, and just how smart (or dumb) we think the "everyday people" of our city really are. Visit Milwaukee was "surprised" that anyone would have a problem with this? And Mike Brenner is just a cranky art snob with an overpriced education who can't lighten up and appreciate the simpler things in life? Come on. We're better than that.

For Mike's own response to the reaction his initial letter inspired, check out his comment on Mary Louise Schumacher's "Art City" blog. And for a good sense of how badly Visit Milwaukee needs a kick in the pants, visit their website, which makes a trip to Milwaukee look about as appealing as a nap. No wonder Mike Brenner is bitter -- Hotcakes, an excruciatingly hip little gem of an art gallery, is nowhere to be found.

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Saturday, November 17, 2007

Another Mistake on the Lake?

Last night, WUWM hosted Project Milwaukee: Creating a Vibrant Regional Economy, a forum of nine influential local figures responding to questions from the moderators, the audience and website visitors about the challenges facing Greater Milwaukee. All of the hot-button issues were trotted out in a drive-by hour-and-a-half – transportation, education, the economy, crime, race, poverty, "brain drain" – with barely a raised voice or interruption and no threat of fisticuffs. An informative – if not momentous – program, indeed.

The facts are on the table, Milwaukee: you're a pretty great city, and most people seem to like you a lot. But you have some seriously ugly moles on your face that are going to get malignant if you don't freeze them off right quick. Statistics released in October confirm our deepest fear: we have the second-highest black male poverty rate in the country, next to PITTSBURGH, at a punch-in-the-stomach 43%. We have one of the worst public school graduation rates in the country, in a list that includes CLEVELAND. And you're going to hate this: of the 50 largest cities in the United States, our unemployment rate is the second highest. Number one?

DETROIT.

The forum lacked a sense of alarm, and it lacked compelling vision for addressing the city’s problems – indeed, at times panelists outright, glass-half-full, golly-gee denied that there were any problems. Maybe that wasn’t the point of Project Milwaukee, anyway; maybe it was imagined as an exploratory, low-stakes roundtable. Still, there were so many moments in the discussion that made me want to stand up and yell: when Rocky Marcoux suggested that segregation and poverty in the city would be alleviated as well-off suburbanites buy condos and move downtown (that’s not a solution; that’s called “gentrification,” thanks very much), or that the new Marquette Interchange was an example of a laudable transportation initiative (as opposed to adding bus routes, lowering fares, thinking out of the box about better public transportation, or moving forward with regional public transit); when Ricardo Diaz, executive director of the United Community Center, countered a question about racial hatred by insisting that Hispanics on the city’s south side are well-educated, employed, financially stable, happy, safe, bustling and “95% undocumented” – and apparently not at all affected by racial issues, which has become a fancy way of saying “black.”

When I told my family I was moving to Milwaukee, my dad offered to PAY ME to move somewhere else. I’m part of that educated, imaginative “creative class” (represented on the panel by restaurateur Mike Eitel and Shelley Jurewicz, director of talent pool FUEL Milwaukee) that mid-sized cities all over are courting. Baby Boomers are starting to retire and the shortage of what Sheldon Lubar (panelist, philanthropist, entrepreneur, activist, reigning city patriarch) called “intellectual capital” is growing extreme. Young people with good ideas need to be encouraged to come here; driven graduates of Wisconsin colleges and universities need to be convinced to stay here.

I moved to Milwaukee for a number of reasons, some incidental, some emotional, some very precise. I wanted to stay in the Midwest, near Detroit and my big Detroit family; I wanted to stay immersed in the cold, the rust, the brick buildings, the staunch characters, tough immigrant attitudes and northern charm that are part of me and put me at ease. I wanted to be in a city, a big city with lots to do and see, populated with exciting young people and interesting ideas, but a city that was small enough to get around on foot, on bike or by bus, a city where I could get to know my neighbors and make a place for myself in the community. I already knew I loved Wisconsin, where there is fresh air, fresh food and lots of space, where in 30 miles, the city gives way to grassy prairies, big lakes and low, wide skies. I wanted to live in a beautiful place, a place that respected its history and tended to its past, a place with well-loved parks and a waterfront. I wanted to live somewhere laid-back, where I could find a gratifying job without scrambling to bleed out the competition, where I could make rent every month without starving or selling out.

I looked into so many places: New Orleans; Washington, D.C.; Portland, OR; Montana; even Detroit’s central city. But Milwaukee was a good fit, and it has been so good to me. I was head-over-heels for Milwaukee for the first year or so of my life here, and now that infatuation has mellowed out into the comfortable, warm sensation of being at home.

Much of Thursday’s discussion about making Milwaukee appealing to us young movers-and-shakers focused on how to make Milwaukee more like the cities we are so attracted to – Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta. But the key to hearts and minds is not green initiatives (necessary though they are), more art galleries, a funkier night life or an Urban Outfitters. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Governor Jennifer Granholm tried that in Detroit with the “Cool Cities” campaign, a failed attempt to sex up Michigan’s image and keep disenchanted college graduates at home, which mostly involved the two politicians wearing sunglasses and sounding out of touch.

As a bright young thing making a new home here in the Brew, my advice to hot air blowers and anyone rightfully concerned about the state of affairs here, perhaps is this: start from the ground up. Go after the big problems ruthlessly. First, face the facts – we need to invest in our impoverished communities, address our fears about race, stop the brutal crime that is rotting the city from the inside out, improve the infrastructure of our public school district and create some meaningful jobs.

Then fight with your teeth bared. This is no time to talk about how to get hip. We need to grow a local economy, we need to desegregate, we need better public transportation. An attractive, livable, vibrant city with an identity that is its own – not modeled after a city we’re jealous of like Chicago, not a condo jungle, not a flashy downtown mock-up that masks a far darker, more desperate reality – will grow organically from safe neighborhoods with smart leaders, educated people that care about their communities and fearless, inspired initiatives that promote communication, transportation, environmental responsibility and a healthy, stable economy. Big words, but high stakes: what if Milwaukee were another Mistake on the Lake?

Project Milwaukee will air on WUWM's Lake Effect this Monday, November 19, from 10 - 11 am. Give it a listen online, see what you think, and share your thoughts, with me or with anyone else.

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Monday, October 29, 2007

“Milwaukee Art Museum: Thoughtless or Naive?” A response …

"I’m starting to feel sorry for the Milwaukee Art Museum," writes Debra Brehmer in the latest edition of Susceptible to Images in an article discussing the recent controversy surrounding MAM's marketing campaign for its current showcase exhibition, Martín Ramírez.

First off, full disclosure: I worked at the Milwaukee Art Museum for nine months before signing on at VITAL, although as the Tour Scheduler, I had little to do with much of anything besides scheduling tours. But I did sit in on programming, education and marketing meetings, and watched the process of planning a show, a marketing campaign, and a schedule of coordinating events unfold from beginning to end.

The complaint amongst scholars, dealers and other professionals in the academic art world, according to Brehmer, is the Museum's "ham-fisted approach" in marketing the exhibition. Ramírez immigrated to the United States from Mexico in the 1920s and spent most of his life in a mental institution, where he created stunning, densely rendered, nearly visionary drawings on paper. Today, after decades of misunderstandings about his life, his illness (there is little proof that he had one), his biography and his work, experts in "vernacular" and "outsider" art want people to just shut up already about these tantalizing but irrelevant mythologies -- which serve, ultimately, to maintain a barrier between "insider" and "outsider" -- and give him what he really deserves: critical attention on the basis of his art, and his art alone.

MAM's advertising strategy, it seems, is to tantalize, with lots of color and motion, teasingly dramatic slogans, and binary proposals -- "VICTIM OR HERO?" "TRIUMPH OR TRAGEDY?" -- all strung together with an ultimatum for the viewer: YOU DECIDE. Does it all seem a little forced? A little too simple? Sure it does.

“Would we do this with Van Gogh’s work?," asks New York Gallery dealer Phyllis Kind. No, we wouldn't. There would be no need. Everyone knows Van Gogh, his sunflowers, his night skies, and the dubious stories that continue to rivet -- his poverty, his lunacy, his ear. "Would the museum take the same liberties with the work of Picasso?" Brehmer asks. No, it would not, although I can't tell you how many people, during MAM's summer exhibition of French impressionist Camille Pissarro's early work, asked to schedule tours to see Picasso.

Martín Ramírez isn't there yet. He should be, but he's not.

So many people right now feel so disconnected from art. At the Museum I had countless conversations with urban school teachers who wanted to bring their students for tours or programs, but faced hurdles with funding, scheduling buses, or taking time out of their rigidly structured curricula. I once received a hand-written note from a kid in Kenosha who missed a field trip because his parents had not allowed him to come to the Museum, although he wrote that he enjoys frequent Brewers and Admirals games in the city. I have young professional friends who have never been to the Art Museum for no real reason besides their doubts about what they would gain from a visit.

The Milwaukee Art Museum consulted a multicultural marketing agency (not an agency of marketing professionals who happen to be Hispanic) to reach out to the underserved Latino demographic in our community that might be especially moved and awed by the work of Ramírez. The people running MAM are not blind -- they know the perception of the Museum as the big, old, quite literally white institutional gorilla on Milwaukee's art scene, not the site of its Renaissance but the fount of its at-times-narrow tradition. With Ramírez, they saw an opportunity to at least soften this perception, if not to radically correct it.

As I read Brehmer's article I thought about Roberta Smith and the free-for-all pledge she advocated in this New York Times editorial. Brehmer writes:

"Although all art museums are now in the business of salesmanship as well as scholarship and most seem desperate to reach broader and broader audiences, a museum’s job is to heighten the level of cultural experience for the masses, not to stoop to the level of the mass media."

But museums SHOULD be desperate to reach broader audiences. I am aligned with Smith's opinions that art museums should be like public libraries, that "like books, artworks are tools for lifelong self-education; it is through them that we discover and explore important aspects of our humanness. They should be equally available to all, for the good of the individual and society as a whole."

Smith is talking about museum entrance fees specifically, but I believe her argument pertains to wider questions of accessibility as well. The Milwaukee Art Museum is nowhere near striking their $14 feature exhibition entrance fee from the register (that's another conversation), so until they can, they had better convince people -- all sorts of people -- that their hard-earned $14 is worth spending to see art. If frenetic, vaguely childish and reductionist marketing campaigns prove to be effective in serving that goal, so be it. Once people see the art, the art speaks for itself -- at which point it is up to the audience, as the MAM marketing team puts it, to decide for themselves whether or not it is even useful to talk about victims, heroes, triumphs, tragedies, or anything else.

This isn't about cowing to the lowest common denominator -- it's about speaking in the advertising language that people have been trained to understand about issues that really should matter but don't seem to capture anyone's imagination. It's not about "stooping to the level of the mass media" -- but wouldn't that be nice? Specials on local TV news channels about art in Milwaukee -- and not just at MAM? How else to reach the masses but through the media? And don't the masses deserve to know?

To suggest that somehow art is "above" such things, or that "insiders" (like the folks at MAM -- or like art critics) have to maintain a boundary of deference when they present "outsider" work, does little to dissolve those imaginary and likely useless categories. And to imply that the Art Museum should be primarily concerned with its international reputation when many of the city's citizens feel decidedly lukewarm about what they're doing is just egregious.

I do hope that MAM can do a better job of presenting the intrigue, the subtlety and the rapture of their next hard-to-sell exhibition -- as well as the "hook." But I care a lot more about who's getting through the doors to see what's up in there than I do about their marketing tactics and whether or not they are dumb.

In other news, I was lucky enough to be invited to the final dress rehearsal of Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, presented by the Milwaukee Dance Theatre. Even with an actor missing, the show was revelatory -- muted, sensitive, riotously funny, personal and touching. Gray's widow composed the piece for five actors, cobbling together pieces of his monologues, letters and journals to trace the arc of his life; during the talkback, we discussed how it was in a way a reimagination of Gray's role in the theatre, a radical presentation of his monologues as works of drama and not just charmingly dark and plaintive personal musings. I have little previous contact with the work of Spalding Gray (his monologues sounded to me as though they've influenced the work of David Sedaris) so I wonder how the show would play differently for a devotee. If you're curious, too, call the Off Broadway Theatre at 414-961-6119. The show runs through November 10.

PS: I am really sick of people referring to Martinifest when they whine about the Museum. People have been getting way too drunk since the dawn of time. Bad judgment? Yes. Still worth talking about? Not in my book.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Gallery Night: Fight or Flight?

Gallery Night always leaves me flummoxed. With the best of intentions, I make a big list of all of the neat things I want to do, and then have a hard time finding anyone to go with me. On the big day, I get home from work, take a nap or a run, fix a light meal, have a massive fashion crisis, throw clothes all over my room, squeeze into something acceptable, fret over footwear, slap on some eyeliner and run out the door with sixty minutes or less on the clock before galleries shut their doors and everyone shuffles into the night for a late dinner at an overpriced restaurant. Last Gallery Night, in July, I had all sorts of promises out to all of my scenester friends to hang out with them at the sceniest hotbeds, but made it no farther than my first stop, Doug Holst's going away party and painting liquidation sale, where I drank most of the beer in his fridge, hung out with his 15-year-old greyhound Lucy, and started an unfortunate conversation with Flavor Dav about buying and selling vinyl that resulted in a very late night.

This time around I vowed to do better. I made my list and recruited my companion, booked home from work for squash soup and fifteen minutes of bedrest, then pulled on some boots and a tough red jacket and plowed onto the scene.

Our first stop -- at 7:30, already doing very poorly on time -- was the Milwaukee Art Museum for their annual staff show. It is no surprise that almost everyone who works at the Museum is an artist in some way or another, and as such the exhibition was impressive -- hand-dyed silk and embroidery by Teen Programs Coordinator Shirah Apple, rich-hued photographs of grain fields and grain elevators by Director of Foundation and Corporate Gifts Frank Miller, jewelry by Director of Public Programs (and my former boss) Fran Serlin and Librarian Heather Winter, charming, industrial charcoal drawings by Assistant Visitor Services Manager Adam Horwitz, pastels of fish and insects by Security Guard Lee Siebers, large-scale and strong-minded mixed media compositions by MiNei Hetzel and bold, cheeky paintings by Mary Beth Ribarchek. And lots more. The gallerias are long and stuffed with terrific work, and we did not let schmoozing deter us from plowing through the whole show.

We drove down to the south side -- foregoing a stop at MIAD due to time and parking constraints -- for 3 for 2 at the Walker's Point Center for the Arts,, where I spend my whole visit consumed by one magnificent self-portrait/comic-book-diary/illustrated essay by Milwaukee cartoonist Max Estes. It hit me right in the gut.

And then it was over. At barely 9:00, Gallery Night officially gives way to dining, moping or after-partying -- which is exactly what's on our plate next door at The Borg Ward, with an inaugural show of reflections on art, war and America by Paul Kjelland, John Kowalcyzk and Minga & Mongoofy. The party is hosted by Borg Warders (plus their president-cat Pierogie) and Broad Vocabulary, mixed and mastered by meticulous DJ Aaron Soma and attended by a whole host of popular people like Kristopher Pollard, Quinn Scharber, Andy Noble, several members of The Candliers, Andrew Rosas, VITAL's own Matt Wild (a dear coworker and friend), plus a ton of other people I don't know, but should.

Innocently, I had pinned the "Boogie at the Borg" for the party of the century (or at least the month) -- soul and funk music, expertly paced, in a hip venue, with hip people, plus a built-in reason to let it all out. But it was one of those parties that didn't quite launch -- an exceedingly pleasant, atmospheric, good-natured get-together that was not in any way a night to remember. For me at least, it was more than anything a sheepish affair -- I spent the whole time trying to get people dancing, dodging bullets of sexual tension, conducting misinformed flirtations, avoiding barbs from embittered friends and convincing myself that my ride had left without me. Evenings like these are so often a case of fight or flight: do you stay, fighting, waiting for the moment that the whole night will turn a glorious cartwheel and exceed your expectations? Or do you run when you can, knowing that holding out is only going to make things more tedious in the end?

I fought. My ride had not left without me. When we finally took off, we rode through eerie empty streets looking for a place to drink off the weird feeling the night had left with us both.

We found it in Tangerine, a thumpy Milwaukee Street club where our friend and coworker Tony Bobrov was tending a desolate bar. A few waters and a tour of the Muppets-in-Space basement (fuzzy orange furniture and toilets in pods?) later, we felt better. We faced Gallery Night fiercely -- and won. But just barely.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A thought about chopsticks

We had sushi for lunch today. It came with chopsticks.

I was really good with chopsticks when I was six years old and in Montessori school. It was all about multi-culturalism in Montessori school. Also, I had many Japanese classmates. I was a chopsticks phenom.

I am no longer skilled with chopsticks, however. Using chopsticks is not like riding a bicycle.

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