Gary John Gresl: Book and Residency Launch

Free to members or with admission to the sculpture garden.

Gary John Gresl is embarking on a year-long residency, The Body Farm at Lynden, that considers ephemerality, mortality, and the lifespan of art objects. A longtime presence in Milwaukee’s art scene—as artist, educator and, most recently, originator of the Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Awards—Gresl is laying the found objects that have made up his assemblage sculptures to rest on the grounds at Lynden in a “pseudo-forensic display.” Patterned on the Body Farm in Tennessee, where forensic scientists monitor the decomposition of human remains under different conditions, Gresl invites us to observe the decomposition of his life’s work.

Gresl will also mark the publication of a new book about his work: Palimpsests & Middens; A Midwest Assembler. The book collects Gresl’s personal observations about visual art, including his thoughts on the correlation of art's evolution to processes witnessed among living things. The 316-page hardcover includes over 350 images of his work from the 1980s to present, including his uncommon “selected object” assemblages, paintings, and photographs of large scale installations, as well as poetry and essays. The work will be available for purchase. The artist will sign books from 5:30-6:30 pm, and will lead tours of his installations on the grounds from 6:30-8:30 pm.