For immediate release:
For further information:
3 May 2016
Mary Dornfeld, 414.288.7290
mary.dornfeld@marquette.edu
THIRTEENTH ANNUAL NOHL FELLOWSHIP EXHIBITION OPENS
AT HAGGERTY MUSEUM OF ART, JUNE 9
The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University opens an exhibition of work by the artists
who received the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual
Artists in 2015. The Nohl Fellowship exhibition opens on Thursday, June 9, 2016 at the Haggerty,
located at 13th and Clybourn Streets on the Marquette campus. It brings together work by Jon
Horvath and Frankie Latina in the Established category; and three artists in the Emerging
category: Ben Balcom, Zach Hill, and Maggie Sasso. The exhibition was curated by Nicholas
Frank.
Each year, the Nohl exhibition affords an opportunity to stop and consider what it means to be
an artist in greater Milwaukee at a specific moment in time. The 2015 cycle has been a
transitional one in the Nohl fellowship program: each of the five fellows is receiving a larger
award than in the past; the exhibition is at a new venue; and it falls earlier in the fellowship year.
While this accelerated timeline has required the fellows to devote more of the first half of the
fellowship period to working on the exhibition, it creates an opportunity to continue to develop
ideas and projects in the second half of the fellowship year. Those artists working in film and
video, for instance, will be screening new projects in the autumn, and other projects will continue
to manifest in new locations after the exhibitions ends.
The Fellows were chosen in November 2015 from a field of 158 applicants by a panel of three
jurors: Jamillah James, Assistant Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Eric May, Executive
Director, Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago; and Jodi Throckmorton, Curator of
Contemporary Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), Philadelphia. Funded by the
Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund and administered by the Bradley Family
Foundation, the Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists provide unrestricted funds
for artists to create new work or complete work in progress. The program is open to practicing
artists residing in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties.
More information: http://www.marquette.edu/haggerty/
For images and credits:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/isz156prurkdjti/AACJ6vJBqKldG59w-X2Ukkzma?dl=0
The Haggerty Museum of Art will host a public reception to honor the Nohl Fellows on Thursday,
June 9, from 5 pm to 8 pm. The returning 2015 jurors will present a gallery talk at 6:30 pm.
Several additional events, some of which will take place in conjunction with the Nohl exhibition
and others that will be scheduled in the fall, have been planned (full details in the Fact Sheet,
below). Many of these events are free, and include a reading, a panel discussion, a variety show,
screenings, and several artist talks. An exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase at the
museum during the opening reception and throughout the exhibition.
Museum hours are Monday-Saturday, 10 am to 4:30 pm; Thursday, 10 am to 8 pm; and Sunday,
noon to 5 pm. The exhibition remains on view through July 31, 2016.
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Presentation of the exhibition at the Haggerty Museum of Art is made possible through generous
support from PNC Bank.
(Please see Fact Sheet, below, for details, and a schedule of ancillary events.)
Established Artists
JON HORVATH
Jon Horvath’s interdisciplinary practice adapts systems-based strategies to photography,
performance, and new media works. His work is influenced by American literature, pop culture,
and his interest in the unfixed nature of a photographic experience. This Is Bliss emerges from a
very personal point of departure--a decision to exit the highway to visit Bliss, Idaho during a
difficult period in Horvath's life--and continues through a series of research trips, camera in hand,
to investigate the vanishing roadside geography and current residents of rural Bliss. The Bliss
that Horvath constructs with objects, videos and photographs draws on the town's own quirky
romanticism--it has a prince, a bartender named Cndrlla, and a rapping minister who delivers a
"Rhymin' Timin' Prayer with Care"--and the artist's personal exploration of the meaning and
practice of bliss. Ultimately, Horvath asks how we--a town with a complex history of booms and
busts; an individual suffering inevitable setbacks; Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye,
who makes a brief appearance in Bliss and in the show--reconcile our personal and collective
experience of failure with our idealized and deeply entrenched mythologies of place and
happiness.
Jon Horvath received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2008, and a BAS in
both English Literature and the History of Philosophy from Marquette University in 2001. His work
has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in the permanent collections of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Haggerty Museum of Art. It is also included in the Midwest
Photographers Project at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Horvath currently teaches
in the New Studio Practice program at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
Jon Horvath will present a reading, book launch, and tour of the exhibition at 6 pm on Thursday,
June 23, 2016. He will deliver an artist talk, "This Is Bliss," as part of the Artists Now! lecture
series at UWM on Wednesday, November 16.
FRANKIE LATINA
In China Test Girls, Frankie Latina's latest feature film, a fashion photographer gets more than
she bargained for when a roll of film in a used camera reveals sinister imagery of high-society
menace, catapulting her into a labyrinth of danger. "For me," observes Latina, "cinema enables
audiences to escape into a better--or at least more interesting--reality." Both the escapism and
the aesthetic in Latina's work are deeply connected to his upbringing in Milwaukee during the
rustbelt years. The son of counterculture parents, Latina was raised by both sets of
grandparents. Immigrant entrepreneurs on one side and labor union activists on the other, they
exposed him to the inspirational and contradictory values of the American dream. Equally present
are Milwaukee's "desolate streets, abandoned buildings, and unique color palette," as well as the
group of collaborators that Latina has gathered around him over the years. In the Nohl
exhibition, the artist works with curator Nicholas Frank to create the world of China Test Girls,
mixing film props with Latina's thrift-store art collection and a "Hot Wheels" gallery of images of
the many vehicles that populate the film.
Italian-American independent film director, producer and screenwriter Frankie Latina was born in
Milwaukee in 1978. Using his Uncle Dave's Super 8mm camera, he began making movies when
he was a teenager. Latina worked as a sales clerk in video rental stores across Milwaukee,
shooting experimental films on the weekends with friends and family members. Eventually he
crossed from experimental work to narrative filmmaking. He studied film at the University of
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Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and was a Nohl Fellow in the Emerging Artist category in 2008. Latina's
first feature film, Modus Operandi, was released the following year, and he is now completing his
second, China Test Girls.
Frankie Latina will offer an in-progress screening of China Test Girls in the fall at the UWM Union
Cinema.
Emerging Artists
BEN BALCOM
Moving between analog and digital media, Ben Balcom's films explore the material image in
various forms. By invoking familiar modes of speech and the everyday failures of communication-the slippages and incoherencies fundamental to our perceptual lives--his work embraces the
essential messiness of subjectivity. In All I Desire, Balcom embeds three moving images--a 16mm
film loop, a three-channel video, and a 16mm film transferred to digital video--in an environment
extracted from the films themselves. Using an immersive grid, artificial plants, and some of the
objects associated with filmmaking and film viewing, Balcom invites you to enter the abstractions
that structure our internal, virtual worlds.
Ben Balcom was born in Massachusetts and raised in Illinois. He received his MFA in Film, Video,
Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his bachelor's
degree in Film-Video Production from Hampshire College. He is the co-founder and coprogrammer of Microlights Cinema. Since 2013, Microlights has hosted nearly 30 film and video
artists from around the world
In the fall, Ben Balcom will screen a collection of his films made between 2012 and 2016 at the
UWM Union Cinema.
ZACH HILL
The Watering Hole is a multimedia narrative mapping the physical and psychological journey of a
young nonconformist, The Zebra, as they cruise the Milwaukee bar scene. The Zebra is the
manifestation of the outlier, the outsider: the one that innately, instinctively doesn’t fit in. After
peering through countless windows at disappointing scenes of normativity, The Zebra
miraculously stumbles into The Watering Hole, a fictional bar unlike any other. As the character
quenches their thirst in a variety of ways, they are immersed in a queer-extravaganza-free-forall-art-house of uninhibited expression. At The Watering Hole, interior and exterior collide to
create a space that is truly unhinged from a world that values uniformity over individualism,
stability over spontaneity, and hate over love. In his exhibition, Zach Hill evokes the fantastical
and raucous environment of The Watering Hole using objects and video, exposing that sliver of
magic that can be found in the everyday.
Zach Hill is an artist, organizer and recent graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
He has shown in institutions and underground spaces throughout Milwaukee including
Imagination Giants, Portrait Society, and Cardinal Stritch University. Hill’s video work was recently
included in a Video! Video! Zine screening at Giron Books in Chicago; in a collaborative exhibition
at Skylab Gallery in Columbus, Ohio; and in a group show at the State University of New York at
Albany. He is a founding member of the collective After School Special, which seeks community
engagement through feminist/queer arts programming.
From 6-8 pm on Thursday, July 21, 2016, Zach Hill and a motley gaggle will activate his
exhibition space with Variety Night@The Watering Hole featuring a Cineviews release followed by
an after party at a local bar. In the fall, Hill will screen The Watering Hole at the UWM Union
Cinema.
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MAGGIE SASSO
The personal narratives in Maggie Sasso's work function as allegories, collapsing the space
between artifact and artwork and relying on humble textiles to tell powerful stories. Frequently
the cloth plays a comedic role, using its soft edges to reshape and humanize serious subject
matter. In Too Much Sea for Amateurs, Sasso creates several large sculptures--the Milwaukee
Breakwater Lighthouse, an iconic piece of architecture in Milwaukee’s harbor; a buoy; a boat-and deploys them with sound in the exhibition space. Too Much Sea for Amateurs investigates
longing, loneliness, dependability, and the certainty of death: universal realities of maritime life.
By rendering a chaotic moment at sea in fabric, she makes it tactile and penetrable, inviting us to
explore our collective past.
Maggie Sasso has had solo exhibitions in Madison, Milwaukee, Portland, Oregon and Lexington,
Kentucky, and her work has been included in many group exhibitions throughout the United
States and Canada. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA
from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky where she was born and raised. Sasso was a
visiting artist and instructor at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. She currently teaches at the
Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
Maggie Sasso will host a conversation about Too Much Sea for Amateurs and the history of the
Breakwater Lighthouse with research collaborator Laura Meine and moderator Darcie Kileen at 6
pm on Thursday, July 14, 2016. She will deliver an artist talk, "Archive & Allegory: Telling Stories
with Material Culture," as part of the Artists Now! lecture series at UWM on Wednesday, October
26, 2016.
NOHL EXHIBITION FACT SHEET
CONTACT INFORMATION
Haggerty Museum of Art
Marquette University
Phone: (414) 288-1669
Email: haggertym@marquette.edu
Web: marquette.edu/haggerty
LOCATION & HOURS
Haggerty Museum of Art, 13th & Clybourn Streets, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10 am to 4:30 pm; Thursday, 10 am to 8 pm; and Sunday, noon to 5
pm.
June 9-July 31, 2016
GREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION’S MARY L. NOHL FUND FELLOWSHIPS FOR
INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS 2015 EXHIBITION
Established Artists
Jon HORVATH
Frankie LATINA
Emerging Artists
Ben BALCOM
Zach HILL
Maggie SASSO
Thursday, June 9, 2016, 5-8 pm
Public opening reception
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Gallery talk by returning 2015 jurors at 6:30 pm.
Nohl Ancillary Events
All events are free, open to the public, and take place at the Haggerty Museum of Art
unless otherwise indicated.
Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 6 pm
JON HORVATH: READING & TOUR
Haggerty Museum of Art, 13th & Clybourn
FREE
Jon Horvath launches Coyote, a short story written in conjunction with the exhibition, with a
reading. Informal viewing of Horvath's video, 10 Blissful Sunsets, begins at 5 pm; visitors are
invited to remain after the reading for an artist-led tour of This Is Bliss.
Thursday, July 14, 2016 at 6 pm
MAGGIE SASSO: TOO MUCH SEA FOR AMATEURS: A Conversation
Haggerty Museum of Art, 13th & Clybourn
FREE
Maggie Sasso is joined by research collaborator Laura Meine and moderator Darcie Kileen for a
conversation about Too Much Sea for Amateurs and the history of the Breakwater Lighthouse.
They will discuss the research that Meine provided for the project, and the way that artist and
researcher worked together to illuminate the past of this iconic piece of architecture in
Milwaukee's harbor. Opening up the conversation to include the audience, they would like to
consider how metaphorical treatments of actual events and subjects can be used to spark
broader conversations about Milwaukee in the present.
Thursday, July 21, 2016, 6-8 pm
ZACH HILL: VARIETY NIGHT@THE WATERING HOLE
Haggerty Museum of Art, 13th & Clybourn
FREE
Zach Hill activates his installation, The Watering Hole, with performances, participatory puppetry,
and a Cineviews premier. Expect drag queens, dancers, artists--and an after-party at a location
TBA.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 7:30 pm
UWM DEPARTMENT OF ART & DESIGN: ARTISTS NOW! GUEST LECTURE SERIES
MAGGIE SASSO: ARCHIVE & ALLEGORY: TELLING STORIES WITH MATERIAL
CULTURE
UWM Arts Center Lecture Hall, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd.
FREE
Information: (414) 229-6052 or arts.uwm.edu
Through fabricated archives, 2015 Nohl Fellow Maggie Sasso relates personal narratives that
function as allegories. She contextualizes objects through installation and documented
performance, collapsing the space between prop, artifact, and artwork. By interrogating specific
objects, unpacking and twisting their meaning back on themselves, she discovers the unique
stories that they each hold, and the ways that they succeed and fail in imparting their stories to
us.
Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 6 pm
TALKS BY 2016 NOHL JURORS
Reception begins at 6 pm; talk begins at 6:30 pm
Haggerty Museum of Art, 13th & Clybourn
FREE
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The three jurors who will be selecting the five recipients of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s
Mary L. Nohl Fund for Individual Artists Fellowships (2016) will give a public talk about their
institutions and curatorial interests. The talk begins at 6:30 pm and is preceded by an informal
reception. Jurors will be announced in the fall.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 7:30 pm
UWM DEPARTMENT OF ART & DESIGN: ARTISTS NOW! GUEST LECTURE SERIES
JON HORVATH: THIS IS BLISS
UWM Arts Center Lecture Hall, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd.
FREE
Information: (414) 229-6052 or arts.uwm.edu
This Is Bliss, 2015 Nohl Fellow Jon Horvath's current multidisciplinary project, examines the
vanishing roadside geography and current residents of Bliss, Idaho, a small rural town.
Philosophically rooted in a broad consideration of how deeply entrenched mythologies of place
(the American West) and traditional mythologies of happiness collide--and are frequently
confounded--This is Bliss illuminates a location formed by a complex narrative of booms and
busts, a place that reflects the long evolution of American idealism.
Events will be added to the web site as they are scheduled. Watch for screenings by
Ben Balcom, Zach Hill and Frankie Latina at the UWM Union Cinema, future Watering
Hole events, and more.
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