what are you doing tomorrow night?

Stop by the Dean Jensen Gallery between 6-9pm
Friday December 11
759 N. Water St.
Milwaukee WI
(414) 278-7100

© Fracesca Pastine

© sonja thomsen

© susan worsham

© wendel white

Big Bangs/Small Bucks II: Present and Past Tenses

Friday, December 11, 2009 - January 30, 2010

...

Thus, you’ll find the first son of that show on our walls and floors here from the night of Friday, Dec. 11, 2009, through Jan. 30, 2010.

With only a few modifications, the template used to produce the first exhibition was reused in the making of Big Bangs/Small Bucks II: An Exhibition for the Post-Bust Economy. In all, the exhibition will include about one-hundred objects in all media, and there will again be about thirty artists represented, many of them from Wisconsin, but others from across the US as well as from abroad. While $750 was the top price on any of the works offered in last year’s Big Bangs, this time around we’ve raised the ceiling to $900,although there will still be pieces available for as little as $100 or $200.

Some of the artists who were in the first show will be back again, but there will also be a lot of newcomers, some of whom already have imposing credentials in the art world, others who are just starting to phosphoresce. We wish we could have re-invited all the artists from the first show, of course, but it seemed to us that outings like this are worth re-presenting only if the mixes are refreshed from year to year. Look for some of the artists who were in Big Bangs I to be back again for Big Bangs III or IV.

Big Bangs/Small Bucks II will include painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, graphic media and installation works.

We’re certain about at least two matters:

+ Among those who take in the show, there will be differences of opinion about which of the one-hundred objects sound the biggest bangs.

+ Whether a visitor is only a casual looker, a beginning collector or a connoisseur, she or he will leave the exhibition with this impression: Art, real art, isn’t defined by the number of zeroes that follow the ordinal number on the pricetag.

--Dean Jensen