Artdose Magazine: Vol. 30

Articles featured in Artdose Magazine in print and online.

Arts + Literature Laboratory

Madison, WI
The Arts + Literature Laboratory (ALL) is situated between co-working spaces, business incubators, and tech start-up companies in a newly renovated area of Madison that was once industrial wasteland but is now becoming an arts and culture hub. Art Lit Lab, as it’s known by community members, is housed in an industrial space shared by a brand new parking garage. ALL is focused on building connections between visual, literary, and performing arts through community-driven practices and programming. 

Collaboration is at the heart of ALL’s mission. In fact, the space actually began in New Haven, CT through partnerships with various collectives, poets, and artists who shared a similar interest in connecting writing with visual arts. In 2015, co-founder Jolynne Roorda relaunched the project in Madison, WI. What began as an artist and volunteer-run project quickly blossomed into a space that hosted about 200 events per year, including exhibitions, performances, screenings, readings, workshops, and classes. Shortly after the move to Madison, ALL incorporated as a non-profit entity in efforts to create a professional, sustainable operations model.

In order to continue growing and meet community needs, Art Lit Lab moved to a new location on Livingston Street in summer 2020 due to a simple need for more space. While both the physical space itself and the structure of the business have been reformed since its inception, Art Lit Lab remains an accessible and inviting environment that hasn’t lost its grassroots charm. With a background in chemistry and sculpture, Jolynne wanted the name to carry a scientific feeling; “Laboratory” invites the idea of experimentation and play. The acronym, ALL, reinforces the organization’s dedication to inclusivity – fostering a space that provides opportunities for artists and community members of all different disciplines, ages, and backgrounds and prioritizing access for groups of people that have been historically marginalized.  

Galleries during exhibitions by Lelia Byron (Tierra de Mujer) and Sylvie Rosenthal (Slip, Spill, Fold: Changing Shapes of Meaning). Image courtesy of Art Lit Lab.

Now, the three-story space has dedicated artist studios, education classrooms, multiple gallery spaces, a library, and the ability to transform large open areas into performance or screening spaces with sky-high rotating walls that open or close depending on the needs of any given program. The library is situated in a cozy mezzanine space that overlooks the main gallery on the first floor, where pedestrians can peer through the floor-to-ceiling windows to get a sneak peek. 

ALL also focuses heavily on partnerships with local artists, businesses, schools, and institutions to bring access and equity to arts education in Madison by working with teaching artists and youth on various outreach efforts. Volunteers and community members work as part of programmatic teams to decide what types of events are scheduled in the space, and proposals for future events from artists, musicians, and writers are welcome.

Art Lit Lab has cultivated culturally beneficial programming by supporting local artists, creating access to youth education, and strengthening professional resources for artists, writers, performers, and musicians. With this clear set of goals, ALL will continue to grow in their new space and bring meaningful programming to the Madison community and beyond for many years to come. 

Night Births in the Laboratory by Emma Pryde, 2020 ALL Prize Recipient. Image courtesy of Art Lit Lab.

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Supreme Tones: The Fabric Portraits by Rosy Petri. Image courtesy of Rachel Hausmann Schall.

Mahogany Gallery

Racine, WI

Artist, gallery director, and Racine native Scott Terry opened Mahogany Gallery at its new location during one of the most memorable and difficult times in recent history. Despite this, the COVID pandemic has not hindered the success of this community gallery space and bookstore. With a street presence on Washington Avenue in Racine’s Uptown neighborhood, Mahogany Gallery’s home is a newly renovated building amongst many other vacancies in the area. An open-concept space greets visitors upon entrance, with a wall of bookshelves, a small shop, and a welcoming sitting area. The gallery extends towards the back of the space, leaving ample room to display works from contemporary artists. Ready for a change after Mahogany’s first location in Kenosha, Scott Terry was eager to take the opportunity to bring his gallery to Racine and make an impact in his hometown. With the goal of supporting Black American artists, Mahogany Gallery hopes to connect artists to new potential collectors, provide artists with exposure, and educate the community. 

As an artist himself, Scott experienced frustrations in the early years of his career when attempting to find gallery representation and found he wasn’t alone in that regard, so he started thinking about how he could make that experience different for artists. Three years ago, after a very successful art fundraiser which supported young, Black men and national artists alike, Scott truly understood that art had the power to invoke change. This fueled his inspiration to open Mahogany Gallery; he knew he could use the space to make an impact on the careers of Black American artists. As the only Black-owned and operated gallery space sitting south of Milwaukee and north of Chicago, Scott is interested in giving back to his community through highlighting the voices of Black creators by bringing visibility and an audience to their work. The name “Mahogany” connects subtly to Black culture while referencing the raw materials associated with the process of creation. 

Supreme Tones: The Fabric Portraits by Rosy Petri. Image courtesy of Rachel Hausmann Schall.

Supreme Tones, an exhibition of work by artist Rosy Petri, was the first official solo show at Mahogany Gallery’s new location in Racine. In addition to hosting exhibitions, Mahogany also hosts private events, community painting nights, musical performances, and offers artist-made goods for sale. The gallery implements additional programming for each exhibition, like the unveiling of new work, an artist talk, or other events that may complement each show. The bookstore features titles about social justice, race, children’s books, and publications written by Black authors which are also available for purchase on their website. Educating the community about issues surrounding race in America pairs nicely with Mahogany’s Gallery’s mission of uplifting the voices of Black American artists through exhibitions. 

Mahogany Gallery is clearly making an impact and will continue to do so through their future programming by celebrating Black creators and educating the community about the history and culture of these individuals.

Supreme Tones: The Fabric Portraits by Rosy Petri. Image courtesy of Rachel Hausmann Schall.

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Ephemeral Embrace by Bill Mitchell December 2019-January 2020. Image courtesy of Rountree Gallery

Rountree Gallery

Platteville, WI

With a rich 41-year history, Rountree Gallery has been an active part of the Platteville art community for years. The gallery was originally founded in 1979 by UW-Platteville art student Robert Terrell as part of his senior project to connect art and community. Now, not far from the University, Rountree is located in a huge, three-story historic building on Main Street that boasts over 2700 square feet on each of its levels and holds ample potential. At the beginning of its life, the gallery was housed in a city-owned building when it was taken over and funded by the city of Platteville. From there, the space moved to Platteville Public Library after the city cut funding for the gallery and they were forced to find a new location. With storefront windows and a back exit that opens directly to a city park gazebo, Rountree’s new location is highly visible, welcoming, and approachable in the community. 

Bill Mitchell, an artist and designer, became involved with the gallery about 4 years ago, after moving to Platteville from Chicago. Bill holds an MFA from Northern Illinois University as well as years of gallery experience. Operating as the gallery director, Bill, along with a small board of community members and volunteers, have taken over managing and operating Rountree. Through memberships, donations, and a non-profit structure, Rountree lives on after the recent transition of ownership from the city. Bill and his wife Angie purchased the historic building downtown that was once a hardware store and now rents the space to the gallery for a nominal fee. Bill and the team at Rountree hope to build up programming by nurturing the space as a creative center and developing a sustainable funding model so the gallery can continue to remain open into perpetuity. Bill knew that Platteville was in need of a professional gallery space for artists to show work, and Rountree’s new location has become just that. Encouraging involvement from younger local artists is also something the gallery hopes to amp up by creating resources for recent college graduates. The space itself continues to undergo renovations and updates, with future hopes to provide 24-hour studio access for artists, one more way Rountree can connect to the local community and continue to “create, appreciate, and educate” as part of their mission.

Connecting Distances curated by Mary Bergs September-October 2020. Image courtesy of Rountree Gallery.

Rountree currently holds about 8 exhibitions a year in addition to classes, events, and other additional programming that include not only visual artists, but performers, authors, educators, and other creators as well. The gallery has also partnered with Platteville High School annually to exhibit the work of K-12 artists. With community in mind, Bill is anxious to extend the programming and opportunities at Rountree to a wider audience, seeing the potential to continue collaborations with various types of creators and entertaining proposals from artists around the state and country. Rountree hopes to bring new eyes to Platteville and promote the vibrant arts community there through the gallery’s work. 

Connecting Distances curated by Mary Bergs September-October 2020. Image courtesy of Rountree Gallery.

00000 GHOOST $HOW: THE GHOULISH LEGACY

In the spirit of the spookiest, most ghastly holiday of them all, the ghouls have summoned my powers to spotlight one of Milwaukee’s most cherished art events, GHOOST $HOW. Having just completed its 9th iteration this past weekend 10/27/18, GHOOST $HOW is a well known, annual tradition shared among Milwaukee artists, performers, curators, organizers, goblins, ghosts, monsters, and evil spirits alike. Shrouded in mystery and clouded with ominous energies from beyond the grave, the annual spooky themed art event exists between multiple venues and exhibits work from local and national creatives - which can range anywhere from 20-70 participating artists, performers, and filmmakers each year. Beyond the hundreds of participants and multiple venues the one night only art event has encompassed for nine years, GHOOST $HOW relies on a team of hosts that are called upon by evil spirits to jury, curate, and organize the artwork each year. The ghouls communicate through their hosts and do not hesitate to cast spells on those who attempt to reach them. I was lucky enough to be granted passage into the ghouls’ creative minds by way of an interview with their various hosts - but under the cost of my immortal soul. Their responses underline the presence of a thriving art community in Milwaukee —one that encourages participation, embraces alternative spaces, and supports fellow artists and organizers.

Anne Burnett, 00000 Ghoost $how VI, BORDERLINE

Firstly, can you expose thoust ghoulish identity by naming yourself? How long/how many years have you been involved with 00000 Ghoost $how (either as an organizer/venue and/or exhibitor)?

You have summoned the Ghouls. Unholy spirits of 00000 GHOOST $HOW shall grant ye audience at the cost of your immortal soul. We are unnamed, wretched, and tormented souls.

The Ghouls have inhabited the souls of different artists through the years. When we first descended to Milwaukee to wreak havoc on Riverwest in the fall of 2010 we possessed the spirits of three weak mortals, Sara Caron, Bradly Fischer and Ashley Janke. Other collaborators - Joe Acri, American Fantasy Classics, Sam Biallas, Stephanie Lane Gage, Carly Huibregste, Kayle Karbowski, Sally Nicholson, Lara Ohland, Tim Stoelting, Alec Regan, and John Riepenhoff (to name just a few from a long list) have performed our ghoulish will in following years. The Ghouls require their hosts to be willing to organize a large, unwieldy exhibition with no money and with the volunteer labor of their friends. None of these hosts go willingly in the abyss of Ghoost $how.

00000 Ghoost $how VI, Lucky Cat

Performance at Lucky Cat for 00000 Ghoost $how VI

Ghoul Car Wash at 00000 Ghoost $how I

Bermuda Triangle, Sara Caron

00000 Ghoost $how VI, BORDERLINE

00000 Ghoost $how VI, BORDERLINE

Max Senesac and Mike Senise, 00000 Ghoost $how I

Johnny Kowalczyk, Tyler Roberts, Ashley Janke, Alec Regan and Rudy Medina at Small Space, 00000 Ghoost $how I

Olivia Rehm at PEELERS

What can you share about the history of 00000 Ghoost $how - how did the first iteration come about?

In the beginning, the possessed beings who believed they originated Ghoost $how of their own free will were friends and collaborators. Brad and Sara ran Small Space in a vacant storefront on Holton and Ashley ran nAbr in a meticulously built out space in her apartment attic. At the time of the first Ghoost $how the structure of the exhibition, across multiple galleries, spoke to this generative spirit and served as a vehicle of pure chaos and mayhem for The Ghouls. Brad framed the show as an event more than an exhibition. From the beginning the show has been a way to get as many artists and spaces involved as possible as a means to build a community around these spaces. What hasn’t changed much from the first iteration to the most recent is that most of the work that’s submitted is accepted, with a few exceptions from time to time. It’s a forum for young artists to gain experience showing work and to see galleries and possibilities they may have been unaware of and for other artists to excise their most demented creative impulses. Over the years some of the work has been pretty weird, maybe bad? Every year the show gives that whole range of spooky art a context.

00000 Ghoost $how VII at After School Special

What are your observations of the growth of 00000 Ghoost $how over the past 9 years?

We Ghouls do summon the spirit of Bradly Fischer to answer this question:  

“After working in New York’s gallery scene for the past 6 years, every time I see online that the Ghoost $how is continuing for another year I feel so happy and also relieved. Relief that there is still a community of smart, talented artists somewhere in this country organizing events that exist outside the toxic overly capitalist art market dictated by a minority of oligarchs. Maybe we can save that conversation for another time...”

We Ghouls peer into our burbling cauldron deep in our lair, the steam clears the horrid brew and we see the obscure visage of Ashley Janke, our most loyal, familiar, longtime organizer:  

“00000 GHOOST $HOW happens each year like magic, despite the fact that there have been years none of us want to exert the energy to pull it all together. I was sure the fourth would have been the last. Many of our spaces had closed and Milwaukee was in the lull it can kind of get into, but the moment summer weather shifted to fall, I began to receive messages asking about the next ghost show and realised it wasn’t a choice, it needed to happen. The project is truly a spirit. A haunting untied to a physical art space. Each year it is summoned by artists and so it returns. I left Milwaukee to pursue my masters in 2016 and despite my doubts, I was pleased to see it continue for three more years. Next year will be a decade of 00000 GHOOST $HOW, just wait and see what we have instore.”

00000 Ghoost $how VII at After School Special

A door slams in the empty house, Sara Caron, originator and sometimes organizer, sometimes exhibitor feels a sudden chill and is compelled to speak:

“It seems so natural to me that the exhibition has continued. Sometimes it’s on a larger scale, sometimes on a smaller one but there’s always some gesture towards it this time of year. We didn’t start it with any grand ambitions. As Small Space, nAbr, and Imagination Giants closed other spots like Horses, After School Special, Gluon, The Open, Peeler’s, and Open Kitchen opened in the same spirit. Ashley has been the most consistent organizer since the beginning, I’ve drifted in and out, but even when neither of us is interested at all any more I think it’s a timeless form and someone else will take up the mantle. It’s fun and goofy and there’s no way to mess it up. Because of the inclusivity and the general attitude of the project there’s never been a version that ‘failed’”

Maps designed by Reece Ousey (left) and Nate Pyper (right), printed by Martian Press for 00000 Ghoost $how VI & VII

In the reflection of the full moon on the filthy Milwaukee river we see an image of Stephanie Lane Gage emerge, the horrible figure croaks through the rippling tide:  

“The first Ghoost $how I experienced was maybe the second or third—the first year was before I had moved to Milwaukee. It was a pretty exciting introduction to the Milwaukee art scene, and the mystery of it continued for me a few years before I actually got to know some of the organizers of the show. Before that, it really was this kind of strange entity that just appeared every October. It definitely seemed like an incredible fixture in Milwaukee and I was always looking forward to when the next October rolled around, hoping that it hadn’t fizzled into the abyss. Ghoost $how’s inclusivity and embracement of more comical/whimsical/satirical artwork was really refreshing in a time when all I knew about art was a more serious white-wall approach. Its celebratory, unpretentious nature was super formative for me as I was coming into my own as an artist and a curator, so I couldn’t have been more pleased when the ghouls from the afterlife possessed me to pick up the mantle for organizing the show in 2016.”

00000 Ghoost $how VII at After School Special

In your opinion, what is the most interesting aspect of hosting and/or organizing a multi-venue, one night only art exhibition/event?

These foolish mortal artists and organizers in Milwaukee seem to be less interested in competition than artists in other parts of the underworld. The more we can spread our demonic rhetoric, the better! More spaces allow us to exhibit more work of our mortal playthings, and allow for a night full of ghastly glee, overtaking the puny city of Milwaukee for one evil night each fall.

How do you think 00000 Ghoost $how has impacted the art community in Milwaukee over the past years?

We Ghouls haunt this land for a brief time each October. We desire only to descend and lay the seeds of bedlam. We call again on Stephanie, a being cursed to have witnessed the disorder we sowed:

“I think Ghoost $how displays the true spirit of the Milwaukee art community and serves as an exciting and long-running tradition to allow artists that have never exhibited before to take part in a celebration of ghoulish work. It also celebrates alternative gallery spaces, and is something that encourages these gallery spaces to continue operating and beginning and flourishing. It’s truly a showcase of the nature of the Milwaukee art scene. Allowing a tradition to possess new souls as it has continued for 9 years and will continue on into the veil of the future.”

00000 Ghoost $how VI at Horses

How many exhibition venues/spaces in Milwaukee can you estimate have been utilized for 00000 Ghoost $how over the course of its existence? How many artists do you estimate have participated?

Easily hundreds of artists have shown in 00000 GHOOST $HOW, some show every year, some just once, at least a dozen venues have participated, the largest ever was probably 6 different locations with over 70 artists.

Here we troubled spirits conjure an incomplete timeline of spaces and organizers:

2010- Small Space and nAbr

2011- American Fantasy Classics (Alec Regan, Olliver Sweet, Brittany Ellenz, Liza Pflugohft), Center (Cody Frei, Mike Senise, Tyler Roberts), Sara & Ashley

2012- Imagination Giants (Ashley Janke, Lara Ohland, Tim Stoelting), Nomadic Arts Center and 516-TJK

2013- Imagination Giants

2014- Ashley, Sam Biallas, Carly Huibregste

2015- Ashley, Sam (BORDERLINE) juried, Spaces included: BORDERLINE + ASS + GGW + HORSES + Lucky Cat + Blue Dress Park + The Triangle

2016- Stephanie Gage + ASS, Spaces: Blue Dress Park, BORDERLINE, GGW, Chamber, Open/Oven/Outlet, Trustfall, The Triangle, The Squat, ASS

2017- Kayle Karbowski + ASS

2018- Gluon, Grapefruit, Green Gallery West, The Open, Peeler’s, Open Kitchen

Do you have a favorite memory/artwork/performance piece/venue that has been part of any nine iterations that sticks out in your mind that you would like to mention?

There are too many for the spirits to choose, but among our favorites include the performance by the band ‘The Ghosts’, the ‘Anti-social Room’, ‘Ghoul Car Wash’, and the ‘Wound Bin’ which still haunt our dreams. Wes Tank’s haunting performance in Grapefruit Studios in 2015 and Xav Leplae and Richard Galling’s black-crust-pig’s head-pizza that was belched from the hellfire of the Oven in 2016 also stick out in our mind.

This year Rosie Brandenburg’s video “Climax - The Demon Jolia” and Stephanie Lane Gage’s “Cursed Object Trading Cards” pleased the twisted minds of the Ghouls.

Thanks and damnation to all the participating artists and spaces over the past 9 years these dreaded Ghouls have reigned!