Michelle Grabner

Untitled (Yellow)

Oshkosh-born and raised artist Michelle Grabner plays many roles in the arts in the Midwest and the country, from artist, teacher, and curator to parent, homeowner, and gardener. Grabner draws from her realms of activity, life experience, and work practices to produce paintings, sculptures, and weavings. For Sculpture Milwaukee, Grabner’s three bookends playfully evoke the stability of primary colors, symmetrical shapes, and balance. Their formal qualities are abstract, graphic, and flat, locating their familiar artistic visual language within modern abstraction and in alignment with Minimalism and Bauhaus design.

Although these are witty conceptual enlargements of a functional library artifact, the printed material that these bookends actually “prop up” is ambiguous. For example, they may be interpreted as supporting the varied social activities of the city, or its architecture, or Milwaukee’s abundant histories or its future chronicles.

The colossal bookends ask viewers to interpret the work’s abstract and material qualities and conceptualize its ability to humorously frame its surroundings. Ideally, the bookends also serve as an opportunity to celebrate the civic value of the book, public libraries, forms of fiction and nonfiction, and, of course, the power of literacy.

Michelle Grabner

Untitled (Yellow)

Exhibition

Actual Fractals, Act II

Materials & Dimensions

Powder coated steel

96 x 72 x 60 inches

Year

2024

Site

Museum Center Park

Credits

Courtesy of the artist.

Audio Tour

0:00/1:34

Social Choreography Score

by Kim Miller

Social Choreography Score

by Kim Miller

Social Choreography Score

by Kim Miller

This work mimics an oversized book end – something that holds things in place. How do you hold things in place? How do you hold yourself in place? How do you hold your place in space? Try to move in a way that disrupts a static position, in a way that still feels like you are held in space.

Once you have this movement phrase understood, teach it to someone else – you may have to imagine they are with you in the space while you teach it.

Stand in a relaxed position looking at the sculpture before you.

Notice the smooth curves the sculpture makes at the top.

Find a way to incorporate the smooth curves from the sculpture into your own body.

Let this move you around the ground.

As you are moving around the sculpture notice if the angles and lines look different from different points of view, let the differences be demonstrated in your body as well.

Notice how the sculpture is open in the middle, like some sort of archway. Is there a way you can make an archway within your own body? Feel free to collaborate with other people if they are present.

Now notice the color, is there a way that specific color moves to you? Show it.

Close your eyes as you move and really try and embody the sculpture in front of you.

After a couple of minutes open your eyes, are there people moving around by you? Observe them, what movements do you see that you like.

Adopt these movements and use them and make them fit into your body and the way it naturally moves.

Explore their movements combined with yours.

Is there a way to make them fit smoothly together like the smooth curves in the sculpture?

Once you are satisfied with experimenting with these movements come to a rest, standing still breathing slowly facing the sculpture.

Once you have this movement phrase understood, teach it to someone else – you may have to imagine they are with you in the space while you teach it.

Stand in a relaxed position looking at the sculpture before you.

Notice the smooth curves the sculpture makes at the top.

Find a way to incorporate the smooth curves from the sculpture into your own body.

Let this move you around the ground.

As you are moving around the sculpture notice if the angles and lines look different from different points of view, let the differences be demonstrated in your body as well.

Notice how the sculpture is open in the middle, like some sort of archway. Is there a way you can make an archway within your own body? Feel free to collaborate with other people if they are present.

Now notice the color, is there a way that specific color moves to you? Show it.

Close your eyes as you move and really try and embody the sculpture in front of you.

After a couple of minutes open your eyes, are there people moving around by you? Observe them, what movements do you see that you like.

Adopt these movements and use them and make them fit into your body and the way it naturally moves.

Explore their movements combined with yours.

Is there a way to make them fit smoothly together like the smooth curves in the sculpture?

Once you are satisfied with experimenting with these movements come to a rest, standing still breathing slowly facing the sculpture.

Once you have this movement phrase understood, teach it to someone else – you may have to imagine they are with you in the space while you teach it.

Stand in a relaxed position looking at the sculpture before you.

Notice the smooth curves the sculpture makes at the top.

Find a way to incorporate the smooth curves from the sculpture into your own body.

Let this move you around the ground.

As you are moving around the sculpture notice if the angles and lines look different from different points of view, let the differences be demonstrated in your body as well.

Notice how the sculpture is open in the middle, like some sort of archway. Is there a way you can make an archway within your own body? Feel free to collaborate with other people if they are present.