COLLABORATIVE INSTALLATION
In an act of multi-layered collaboration, we worked with Milwaukee-based artist and gallerist John Riepenhoff to create an installation for his project, The John Riepenhoff Experience (JRE), a miniature gallery mounted to the wall that visitors must access by stepping up a ladder and inserting their heads through the floor of the space. When Riepenhoff contacted us about showing in the JRE, we first visited The Suburban Riverwest, the now-closed gallery owned by Michelle Grabner in which the JRE was to be sited. A former laundromat, The Suburban Riverwest had a fantastically dingy basement that proved inspiring. We decided to create a miniature version of The Suburban Gallery’s basement to be presented within the JRE, titled The Sub-Suburban. Because the basement was currently being used as the caretaker’s studio, with paintings on the walls and extra pedestals here and there, we realized that the miniature basement would also be an exhibition space of sorts, so we teamed up with photographer Kyle Seis who coincidentally ran a small-scale gallery called Chamber out of his own basement. (It was not as mini as our miniature, however – a person could walk into his space.) Finding affinity with our two projects, we asked Seis to curate an exhibition for the Sub-Suburban. He asked GraceMarie Keaton, a Philadelphia-based artist, to mount a show in the Sub-Suburban. Thus, the title of the exhibition read:
The John Riepenhoff Experience presents: Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg's Sub-Suburban featuring GraceMarie Keaton at Kyle Seis' Chamber
A second iteration of this project was created for our annual studio open house, and also shown later at the Haggerty Museum of Art. This time, we worked with a team of artists known as After School Special, who decided to program the space by asking a local gallerist, Nicholas Kinsella, to choose someone from the roster of artists he exhibited at his space Horses, a gallery in the back of an SUV. Kinsella asked Chicago artist Rebecca Lothan to create a (very) small installation for the back of a miniature version of Horses, now known as Horses 2. The tiny SUV for Horses 2 – approximately 3 inches tall – was modeled and 3-D printed by Joe Acri of After School Special. The title of the exhibition was:
The John Riepenhoff Experience presents: Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg's Sub-Suburban programmed by After School Special presenting Horses 2 presenting new work by Rebecca Lothan
