Before Render: Michael Lagerman

 

Before Render: Michael Lagerman

July 8 – August 20, 2022

 

 

 

Before Render: Michael Lagerman

Please join us on Friday, July 8th, 2022 from 5-8PM for the opening reception of Before Render: Michael Lagerman. Before Render will be the first solo exhibition of Michael Lagerman at The Alice Wilds and will be on view through August 20th, 2022.
 

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Before Render…

is an expanding logical site, emerging during confrontation with processual becoming

acts as a kind of idiosyncratic pause, a harmonious ode to possibility, patiences, and stretched time

deals with understanding desire, the tension of imminent progress, and traveling alternative histories

unfolds like an equivocal survey of subjectivity, perhaps made less vague if placed amongst events like ‘unpacking’ or ‘settling-in’

contains aesthetic utility for evaluating and discerning a way forward from here/now

promotes the critical task of rethinking of sustainability

acknowledges future-making-pasts and borrows from old ideas to contribute new constitutions

is a virtual sieve, sorting things [ideas, objects, and memories] and allowing them slippage into new networks

nullifies some feedback loops between praxis and theory

translates indexical, machinic input into eloquent romance 

amplifies intuitive feeling [belief, trust, chance]

claims ecological unity with all material

hypothesizes the improbability of silence and rejects stillness

extends an unmeasurable duration and lacks a knowledgeable destination

is organized to no specific end

* * * * * 

 

Michael Lagerman is an artist, photographer, designer, organizer, and educator living and working in Milwaukee, WI. He chooses to describe his studio practice as ‘multimodal’. This means the products of his practices are not circumscribed to any one specific media, form, or goal. However, Lagerman does find that photography has embedded itself within all aspects of his making as a byproduct of his fascination with light’s physical and esoteric material properties. This wonder couples with his research on historical and cultural implications and revolutions that images bear responsibility for, and witness to. The relationship between the reproduction of light and its byproduct of culture always brings him back to thinking photographically. However, some of these thoughts are better expressed through other modes rather than something flat and reproducible. These other methods of expression sometimes require cameras like with film and video, or are sometimes referent to the event of taking a photograph as is with his work using found objects and sculptures. Altogether, the work stands in for ideas that demonstrate his commitment to an ongoing, critical understanding of photography and visual culture. Lagerman is inspired to research and look at current and historical trends of how imagery continues to restrict and broaden both individual and collective realities. Lagerman is concerned for these realities, aware of the anxiety and danger in our current moment, and the recurring political scripts that narrate violent inaction, Lagerman responds by making and constructing images, video, and objects as an expressive act of alteration to his own senses with the hope they might provide colloquial opportunities for perceptual realignment.

The artist’s practice extends outside of his studio as he finds there is an opportunity for ethical action and a deep personal joy in organizing and collaborating with other artists. Lagerman’s efforts to create opportunities for community-building and mutual support are a continuing component to his practice. His current efforts involve co-directing _underscore, a project space and screening room with creative partner and filmmaker Grace Mitchell. Lagerman has previously contributed his curatorial vision with galleries and institutions including: Lynden Sculpture Garden, Chamber, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Galerie Kenilworth. Although still on an indefinite hiatus, Lagerman is one-half of the charitable queer dance party, FxG Church. Together with artist and friend, Vaughan Larsen, FxG Church was born to create new queer spaces and to generate mutual aid for local queer health organizations, platform artists and performers, and celebrate self-expression in line with the history of club culture.

Lagerman completed his Master of Fine Art in Photography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2021. Lagerman now works as a full-time instructor in the Visual Arts Department at Pius XI High School. He also looks forward to serving as an Adjunct Professor for the Digital Studio Practice program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee this Fall.