http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/articles.sec-28-1-art.html Rudy Rotter must have been a fine dentist. He never looked into my mouth, but we did look into each other's eyes one day, years after he gave up dentistry and devoted himself entirely to art. What I saw was a warm and kindly man of integrity with no apparent interest in the fuss and pretense of the art world. He must have liked what he saw, too, because he spontaneously presented me with a wood and metal sculpture of a rearing, whimsical, Chagall-like creature. When Rotter died in 2001 at age 88, he left behind...]]> Magic realism-stepping across the line dividing here from there-turns me on, be it in the novels of Murakami, Marquez, Eco and Mishima, or in the work of Flora Langlois, a Wisconsin artist who hails from Costa Rica. You too can fly unfettered straight to the heart of make-believe, where fantasy reigns from Nov. 21 through Dec. 27 at Tory Folliard Gallery. To my mind, the best fairy tales suggest danger lurking until death comes knocking and (perhaps) resolves our earthly games, which in Langlois' acrylic paintings are played in excruciating detail. Here frolics Truth... ]]> With a desire to make a positive change in the world, the Underwood Foundation uses the art of photography for humanitarian efforts. This new philanthropic organization established itself in the Third Ward's P.H. Dye House in January 2008 under the direction of photographers Thom R. Feroah, Ph.D., Robb Quinn and Larry D'Attilio. The trio circles the globe to help document relief work and share the message of compassion through photographs and photographic essays. These objectives are outlined in the Underwood Foundation's mission... ]]> One of the nation's largest contemporary basket collections debuts at the Racine Art Museum in the exhibit "Basketworks: The Cotsen Contemporary American Basket Collection" through Jan. 4, 2009. These 70 exquisitely constructed pieces comprise only a portion of the 151 baskets that Lloyd Cotsen, avid art collector and former CEO of Neutrogena Corp., gifted to the RAM. The exhibit provides stunning examples from various international artists, as well as many innovative Americans who Cotsen observed exploring this fiber art medium. Through the artists' avant-garde approach to this three-dimensional art... ]]> Tropical landscapes and luscious fruits portrayed in oil evoke the essence of warmer climes in two new exhibitions opening at Tory Folliard Gallery this weekend. Starting Nov. 21, well-known Milwaukee artist Flora Langlois and retired Bowling Green State University art professor Dennis Wojtkiewicz display their engaging paintings. Langlois' magical realism will delight viewers in "Matters of Nature," comprised of new oil pieces detailing surreal and... ]]> Veils, both physical and metaphorical, can conceal individuals, places and communities. This highly recognizable, emotionally charged garment provides the theme for the exhibition, "The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces," which opens Nov. 13 at the UW-Milwaukee Union Art Gallery. This timely exhibit unmasks the controversy of the veil within a cross-cultural context. Is the Muslim hijab, which hides a woman's hair or face, a symbol of faith or oppression? Similarly, when the Catholic sisterhood cloaks itself in habit... ]]> The advent of new technology and the pace of modern life have affected how we encounter objects of historical or aesthetic interest-not to mention the amount of time and consideration we're willing to devote to them. Many museums and galleries are revamping their collections to meet the changing demands of today's museumgoers, though not in the manner one might expect. Thankfully we're witnessing more than a blind embrace of digital paraphernalia, but rather a paradigm shift in how museums are restructuring their collections-often looking to the past for inspiration. Museums like London's Victoria and Albert... ]]> Through Jan. 18, 2009, seven winners of the 2007 Mary L. Nohl Fellowship awards exhibit their work at Inova/Kenilworth. The gallery has been newly expanded to include the splendid "Black Box," a windowless addition for video and film. Gallery Director Bruce Knackert and curator Nick Frank have patiently whipped Inova into shape. All that's needed now is an exhibition budget of decent proportions. Nohl Fellowship winner Mark Klassen offers a minimalist installation based in fear: terror on a New Jersey toll plaza, the possibility that an airbag will detonate when least expected, a sign emblazoned "Call Police Help!" Each scaled-down tollbooth is hand-built and painted icy-white. Directly overhead, faux fluorescent lights suggest an autopsy arena... ]]> Video and video installation artists occupy the hazy gray zone between cinema, sculpture and performance art. By virtue of the medium's immediacy, accessibility and historically cheap aesthetics, video artists are saddled with the task of clearly defining their work outside the realm of mainstream and even avant-garde cinema. According to the show's curator, Andrea Inselmann, the video artists of "Stop. Look. Listen." explore three types of relationships: artist to mainstream cinema, sound to image, and the mirror relationship between the viewer and the body as subject. And while these themes...]]> After 18 months of renovation, the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) reopened the American Collections Galleries in grand style on Oct. 23. In collaboration with the Chipstone Foundation, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit that collects antique American furniture and ceramics, organizers coordinated curators and decorative arts collections to redefine the galleries and attempt to inspire awe and curiosity among visitors. Constructed on the MAM's lower level, the six galleries-the American Furniture Gallery, Hidden Dimensions, Loca Miraculi: Rooms of Wonder...]]> a new exhibit at the Haggerty Museum of Art, titled %uFFFDStop. Look. Listen: An Exhibition of Video Works,%uFFFD more than a dozen international video artists challenge society%uFFFDs perceptions of reality. This scaled-down exhibition designed for the Haggerty traveled from the Herbert F. ]]> A boy and girl stand back to back, arms crossed, in Michael Foster's three-panel oil painting titled Siblings. The body language gives viewers an immediate sense of psychological tension. Clouds of dissension in the background symbolize the stalemate between the 13-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister, both fixed in their stances. More than 15 oils on panels and two charcoal drawings are included in the current exhibition "Michael Foster: Transitions" in the Ploch...]]> By presenting the essence of the environment surrounding her, Susan Diehl's meditative artwork reveals the innate beauty of the world. Employing techniques used by the Russian Impressionists-an inspiration she attributes to mentor Ron Lukas-Diehl overlays her images with thick impasto strokes of oil pigment. Yet the valuable treasures she unearths surface more clearly in her figurative work and miniature paintings. The title of her exhibition at the Charles Allis Art Museum, "Big and Little, Here and There," aptly describes the extensive...]]> Katie Musolff, a 2004 graduate of Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, stakes her name on her award-winning oils. Her near-life-size portraits capture the unique persona and soul of her subject in masterful strokes, but a recent personal experience led her to redirecting the focus of her art and her life. This reevaluation of her subject matter and primary medium infuses her upcoming exhibition "Drawn from Life," which opens on Gallery Night at the Elaine Erickson Gallery, located on the first floor of the Third Ward's Marshall Building. ]]> Were it not for memory and the visible onset of age, man might easily infer that he lives an infinite and unvarying existence. After all, isn't each day more or less indistinguishable from the last, bearing the fruit of yesterday and the seed of tomorrow? Perhaps, as Delacroix said, the role of art is to give value and substance to the passing of time, to interrupt the terrifying monotony of our days with glimmers of understanding. A new exhibit at Milwaukee Art Museum titled "Act/React" reveals the weightlessness that art engenders by erasing all memory of itself...]]>