just seeds opening

On Thursday I made it to the opening of the Just Seeds' exhibition in the Union Art Gallery on the UWM campus. The Union Art Gallery is one of the most difficult exhibition spaces I know of. The room footprint is highly irregular, the wall surface is that indestructible gray-tan pebbly Seventies concrete, and the ceilings are about twenty-five feet hight. In other words, it'd be a wonderful space for some really ambitious soft sculpture. But for 2-d work, it is sometimes a challenge to simply keep the space from completely overwhelming the art work. The fifteen Just Seeds members triumphed over the space and produced the most natural-feeling installation I've ever seen in that gallery, the conceit being a gallery representation of a crumbling highway overpass. That is to say, what Milwaukee will be one of these days.

just seeds wall graphic

just seeds window

just seeds fence

Shows that bring 'street art' into galleries are usually so tame, stylized, and de-politicized as to be hardly worth the consideration. Not so in this case. From the exhibition title ('Which Side Are You On?') to the many explicit, topical, poetic, and/or ironic slogans, turns of phrase, and complete posters peppered throughout the installation, this show lives up to the radical broadcasting we've come to expect from all things Just Seeds.

Comments

[Emmi]

[this is good]

The sense of perspective (physical, dimensional perspective, that is) in the first one is quite striking. Lovely works.