Michelle Grabner

Michelle Grabner
Born 1962 (age 55–56)
Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Known for painting

Michelle Grabner (born 1962 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin) is an American painter, conceptual artist, curator and professor.[1] She's currently Painting and Drawing Chair at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[2]

Life

Grabner received a B.F.A. (painting and drawing) in 1984 and an M.A. in art history in 1987 from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She received an M.F.A. from Northwestern University in 1990.[3][4] At NU she worked with painters Ed Paschke and William Conger. She is Professor of Painting and Drawing Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has been teaching since 1996. From 1997 through 2003 she was on faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Art.[5]

Work

Grabner considers herself a conceptual artist, and her work seeks Platonic ideals of orderliness and routine. In her early work, she pursued these principles through her domestic environment and everyday life (crocheted blanket patterns, paper towel patterns, etc.) and in her later abstract work through repetitious vocabulary, simple mathematical ordering, the Archimedean spiral, and basic radial compositions. In 2012, she revisited the domestic realm through use of fabric and gingham patterns. She sees this work in relationship to the work of Eleanore Mikus, Anni Albers, and Sheila Hicks.[6] Since then, she has returned to the familiar knit and crochet textiles casting them in bronze and mounting as standing sculptures.[7]

Her work is in the collection of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; DaimlerChrysler Collection, Berlin; Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[8]

In November 2012, Grabner was chosen to be one of three curators for the 2014 Whitney Biennial in New York.[9]

Writing

Essays and reviews by Grabner have been published in Artforum,[10] X-tra, Frieze,[11] Artext, Art Press, Cakewalk, and Modern Painters[8].

The Suburban and The Poor Farm

From 1999-2015 Grabner and her husband Brad Killam ran the artist project space called The Suburban[12] in Oak Park, Illinois, which they developed with friend David Robbins in response to the idea that the suburbs were an overlooked site for avant-garde activities. In 2016 they moved the Suburban to Milwaukee.[13] Since January 1999 they have worked with over 200 artists.[6]

In 2008 Grabner and Killam purchased the Waupaca County Poor Farm in the Town of Little Wolf in Waupaca County, Wisconsin. The building's 8,000 square feet (740 m2) is dedicated to year-long exhibitions. The Poor Farm, a non-profit art space and residency also has a dormitory building for artists and writers. The Poor Farm hosts classes from the University of Minnesota and Columbia College, and each summer hosts Summer School, a free school with a mix of students and faculty from colleges around the Twin Cities.[6] During the summer of 2009 the Waupaca County Poor Farm was the site of The Great Poor Farm Experiment, a series of artworks installed and presented in and around the Poor Farm during the renovation of the main exhibition building.[14]

In spring of 2015, Grabner and Killam moved back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and are renovating a building in the neighborhood of Riverwest to house The Suburban in Milwaukee.[15]

References

  1. ↑ "Two Curators on the 2014 Whitney Biennial - artnet News". artnet News. 2014-02-21. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  2. ↑ "School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) Rises in National Rankings". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Michelle Grabner". PennDesign. University of Pennsylvania School of Design. 2015. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  4. ↑ "MICHELLE GRABNER with Barry Schwabsky". www.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Michelle Grabner". SAIC. School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 Brooklyn Rail, March 2012
  7. ↑ Grabner, Michelle; Getsy, David; Levine, Caroline; James Cohan Gallery (2016). Michelle Grabner: Bronze. ISBN 9781532326899.
  8. 1 2 "Faculty Profile: Michelle Grabner". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  9. ↑ Mary Louise Schumacher. "Michelle Grabner named curator for Whitney Biennial". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov. 29, 2012.
  10. ↑ "Michelle Grabner on Joseph Yoakum". artforum.com. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Frieze Magazine | Advanced Search". www.frieze.com. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  12. ↑ "History - The Suburban". www.thesuburban.org. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
  13. ↑ "Contact - The Suburban". www.thesuburban.org. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
  14. ↑ Mary Louise Schumacher (August 7, 2009). "The Great Poor Farm Experiment". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  15. ↑ Schumacher, Mary Louise. "Michelle Grabner marries Midwest pragmatism to high art". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved May 1, 2015.

Further reading

  • Relyea, Lane and Michelle Grabner. “Remain in Light”. Illinois State University, 2008
  • Michelle Grabner's Black Circle Paintings, Metalpoint Drawings and Monoprints. Poor Farm Press, 2009.
  • Jacob, Mary Jane and Michelle Grabner (eds.). The Studio Reader. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
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