Arts + Literature Laboratory (ALL) and The Bubbler at Madison Public Library are pleased to announce Madison’s first Bike the Art event. This monthly curated bicycle tour of Madison art spaces will take place on Saturday, September 10, 2016, beginning with an interactive, food-focused art experience led by The Bubbler’s artists-in-residence, Spatula&Barcode, from 4:00-4:30pm. The tour will continue to Drunk Lunch for an exhibition by Meg Fransee + Lance Marchel. The next stops will be Art In’s Life Drawing Class Anniversary Exhibition, and then Hatch Art House, featuring work by Craig Grabhorn. A combined stop will include an exclusive sneak peak of Jerry Jordan’s upcoming exhibition Figuratively Speaking at Gallery Marzen and the opening reception of Wendi Kent’s exhibition Transitions I at Cafe Zoma across the street. The final stop will be the opening reception of Helen Hawley and Chele Isaac’s exhibition Like a Striking Simile at Arts + Literature Laboratory which takes place from 7:00-9:00pm. Across the street, Midwest Clay Project will offer free pottery wheel demos 7:00-9:00pm. This event is FREE and open to the public. Learn more about how to participate below.
#BikeTheArt
Participants are welcome to join the tour at any stage. Arts + Literature Laboratory will share the group’s location via social media throughout the evening to make it easy to join in. Facebook: facebook.com/artlitlab; Twitter: twitter.com/artlitlab; Instagram: instagram.com/artlitlab. More information about the exhibitions and participating organizations will be posted online at biketheart.org as it becomes available.
Bike the Art will continue in October on Saturday, October 8th. Each month there will be a different route, new art, and special events.
SCHEDULE (times approximate - follow us on social media for updates during the tour)
4:00-4:30pm: The Bubbler at Central Library
201 W. Mifflin
4:45-5:15pm: Drunk Lunch
807 East Johnson
5:25-5:55pm: Art In
1444 E. Washington
6:00-6:20pm: Hatch Art House
1248 Williamson
6:30-7:10pm:
Gallery Marzen 2345 Atwood
Cafe Zoma 2326 Atwood
7:15-9:00pm:
Arts + Literature Laboratory 2021 Winnbago
Midwest Clay Project 2040 Winnbago
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The Bubbler at Central Library: Special Food-Focused Art Experience with Spatula&Barcode
Spatula&Barcode makes art projects in which the performance of place and of hospitality are central. Most projects involve conversation and some form of playful gift or souvenir (“swag”). While most Spatula&Barcode projects involve food in some way, their recent series Foodways directly explores the movements of food and food culture.
Spatula&Barcode is a “social practice art” group that combines many activities in their projects: interviews and interactions, social media, photography, writing, and public events. Spatula&Barcode is the umbrella name for the work that Michael Peterson and Laurie Beth Clark (both faculty in the Department of Art, University of Wisconsin) make together, but we often say that anyone who works with us on one of the projects is a part of Spatula&Barcode.
Drunk Lunch: New Work by Meg Fransee + Lance Marchel
New Work by Meg Fransee + Lance Marchel, a joint exhibition bringing together risograph prints by Oakland-based artist Meg Fransee and sculpture by New York City-based artist Lance Marchel.
Meg and Lance met in 2008 while studying Art at the University of Wisconsin, and although they now live on opposite coasts, they’ve continued to support and influence each other’s respective practices. Lance’s works use resin and found objects to interrogate and reorganize language, symbolism, and spirituality, whereas Meg’s work renders interior spaces with a figurative presence. Together their work examines the relationship between collective narratives, ritual, and popular culture, while also serving as a “meeting point” for their diverged yet mutually informing art practices.
Art In: Life Drawing Class Anniversary Exhibition
View recent work by students in Paul Smith’s life drawing class, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary at Art In.
Hatch Art House: Featured Artist Craig Grabhorn
The Hatch Art House's featured artist for September is Craig Grabhorn of C.Cal Design Studio. Craig is currently the Community Arts Specialist with The John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI. He's been working on ceramic plaques to pair with his modern and fresh screenprints which will be highlighted at Hatch for the month of September. Hatch will be showcasing Craig's work from September 1st-30th with an artist reception on Friday, September 9th from 6-9pm.
Gallery Marzen: Preview - Figuratively Speaking: Portraiture by Jerry Jordan
Figuratively Speaking is a solo exhibition featuring the portraiture of Jerry Jordan. Jordan’s work is heavily influenced by classical representative portraiture while simultaneously capturing the essence of contemporary scenes in expressive oil strokes. His figures are portrayed in an almost saintly fashion while they’re passionately working in their trade, caught in a candid moment of reflection or carried away in a daydream. His work is intimately based on life in the day of real people who live and work around him. Jordan, a skilled and productive artist, has mastered capturing those expressive and sometimes telling dispositions among his range of unique subjects.
Jerry Jordan is a Recruiter at UW-Madison and a graduate of UW-Whitewater with a BA in Fine Art and his MS in Curriculum and Instruction with emphasis in Art Education. His work has been featured on occasion on the cover of Madison publication UMOJA and has been shown at Overture Center for the Arts, School of Education Gallery at UW-Madison and Commonwealth Gallery among others.
Cafe Zoma: Opening Reception - Transitions I: Paintings by Wendi Kent
Wendi Kent is a queer artist, photographer, and reproductive rights activist living in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the creator of the Abortion Truth Project, which provides education on abortion policies and procedures across the country (see abortiontruthproject.com). Her continuing series of photo essays, “Faces of the Fight,” documents abortion clinic protestors and escorts at clinics across the United States. She is an outspoken advocate for awareness of and destigmatization of mental illness. Her paintings are portraits of emotions and are typically completed in one session.
Arts + Literature Laboratory: Opening Reception - Like a Striking Simile: A Series of Objects by Helen Hawley and Chele Isaac
Artists Helen Hawley and Chele Isaac maintain studios one block apart in downtown Madison. They each work across a variety of media and over time noticed an uncanny simultaneity of ideas, images and insights. Curious about the recurring and serendipitous parallels, they decided to explore the source and terrain of this shared language with a collaborative exhibition. Throughout Like a Striking Simile, Hawley and Isaac explore a fascination for how, under careful observation and consideration, the materials and objects often overlooked in daily life seem to suggest something else entirely. Though produced independently the work of the exhibition evolved in a sort of call and response to each other’s sketches and experiments.