The Suburban, Walkers Point
Stephen Berens & Elizabeth Bryant
By M.L. Schumacher
In a modest storefront in Walker’s Point, artists exhibit their work in a non-commercial setting. It’s worth the effort to find The Suburban, Rafael Francisco Salas reports in his review of a new exhibit there.
Owners Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam actually operate two venues under The Suburban banner in Milwaukee: one in S. 5th St. in Walker’s Point and the other in Riverwest. Rafael notes Grabner and Killam give artists the freedom to install their work as they see fit.
Related: Walker’s Point gallery The Suburban a place to show and see art without pressure
Through Sept. 2, the Walker’s Point location houses installations and photographs by Los Angeles based art couple Elizabeth Bryant and Stephen Berens.
Bryant gleans discarded objects and tactile memories into totemic, airy assemblages held together with ropes and macramé. “The lumpy traces of fingerprints and inconsistent decoration on these humble objects evoke the innocence and discovery of making,” Rafael writes.
Berens’ small black-and-white photos, taken in South Carolina in the 1970s, portray roadside gas stations and shops with carnivalesque signs for fireworks, beer and souvenirs. “Though they at first appear to be candid snapshots with strangely cropped buildings and a somewhat loose focus, as a group they begin to take on a narrative of American journeys,” Rafael writes.
