The yin and yang of Fall Gallery Night

Trying to get a handle on the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s Fall Gallery Night is a lot like trying to hug a windstorm. This Friday from 5 to 9 p.m., 56 locations throughout Madison will host events that feature artists in vast ranges of styles, traditions, and schools. So instead of previewing the boundlessness of the whole damn show, The A.V. Club sorted through the yin and yang, and found interconnectedness in some of the many events that look promising.

Vice vs. wellness
Most great art is inspired at least in part by those dingy, dusty corners the rest of us common-folk don’t like to explore. So it stands to reason Gallery Night would feature artists whose tools or end-products mine the dark side of the human condition. State Street Gallery will feature the work of Eric J. Lee, an artist whose experimental techniques involve furniture stain, ashes, concrete, and ignited gunpowder to produce moody scenes of post-industrial decay. Michael Hecht’s method of “knife drawing” involves slicing and severing paper with an X-acto knife to create artworks that in this show are inspired by the books and films centered on Frankenstein and Dracula. (We can only hope the Willy Street Co-op sets up Hecht’s exhibit near the raw meat case.) 

On the flip side, many of Madison’s purveyors of health and wellness will counter these hearts of darkness with incense and shitloads of positive karma. Happy Bambino’s display of nursing mothers in public settings—part of the Nursing Is Normal-Madison Project—is as delicate as fabric softener. Body Conscious PilateSpa will put Mary Alice Wimmer’s serene watercolors and silverpoints of bones, rocks, feathers, and fruit on display, while Mary Bero’s combination of embroidery, painting, and drawing will softly brighten up the Atwood Acupuncture Center along with Dennis Nechvatal’s vibrant still-lifes and metal masks. Mound Street Yoga Center has a threesome with sculptor Gene Tully, painter Heather Denson, and installation artist Chele Isaac, though things will get particularly bouncy during performances by the Bare Bones Dance Collective at 6 and 7:30 p.m. The Quarry Arts Building seems built exactly for a night like this, and will host a grab-bag of serenity with eight artists (including several with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink surnames of “Kjelland”) showing hand knits, oils, acrylic, photography, and metal/scrap art.

Glass vs. hands-on, messy fun
It's easy to plot out a gallery night route that's a slalom of breakables: Absolutely Art highlights Martha Kauppi’s fused glass and encaustic (paint mixed with melted beeswax) wall art; Aardvark Art Glass will hold a glass-bead-making demo; Radiant Glass will stage live glassblowing and plenty of glass pumpkins on display; and Reneé Glass Factory will hang up some fused-glass works—created with a process that involves the always fun-to-say phrase, “slumping various glasses.” Studio Paran also gets in on the glassblowing, but will augment the furnace festivities with a group show of artist-made lights.

For those who just can't keep their grubby mitts to themselves (and wary of a "you break it, you buy it" directive), there are a few hands-on events slated for Gallery Night. Fine Earth Studio & Gallery has planned a kid-friendly night of pottery demonstrations and appetizers. As usual, Anthology has visitors up to their ears in paper, crafts, and projects, encouraging guests to unleash some homemade creativity, even if it's just making a button for $1. But the absolute jackpot for getting in there and mixing it up will undoubtedly be the Madison Children's Museum. Hosting an open house from 6-8 p.m., the museum will offer lots of art activities and a special exhibit, Cartoneras, featuring art books made from reclaimed cardboard. Don't be fooled by the museum's name, though: Permanent exhibits like Building Boom and Dream Machine are just as awesome for adults as they are for children.

Realism vs. expressionism
Seeing the world as it really is can be tough, but it can also provide a window into parts previously unknown to us. Barry Sherbeck's photo series on Rwanda at Lucent Room Studio does that, painting the country as a glowing place filled with vivid colors and easy smiles, not the war-torn, impoverished nation everyone knows. Janus Galleries continues the trend toward realism with artfully rendered and classically styled landscapes and still-lifes celebrating autumn, perfect for hanging above your grandma's couch. Perhaps S.V. Medaris' stunning (if slightly askew) paintings of farm animals offer a glimpse of what to expect at her Madison Public Library show, Corn Fed, which features more than 20 pieces in various media of things powered by corn.

In between, there's Milward Farrell Fine Art featuring an expansive collection encompassing dozens of styles. Local artist and art instructor Marla Brenner's soft-touch representative landscapes appear as through a hazy, soap-opera lens, and Danielle O'Connor Akiyama's abstract flowers drip syrupy sweet while bending reality through her use of fluid acrylics. Rounding out the other end of the spectrum, Everett Kitts will display his layered, eye-popping expressionist explosions (inspired by rock 'n' roll) at Eyeopia Progressive Eyewear. So after you've had your retinas blasted with Kitts' Technicolor vision, you can have the optometrist check to see if they still work.