Pacific Midwest 2.0 Exhibition - INOVA Gallery Features the Milwaukee, Milwaukie Museum

Pacific Midwest 2.0 exhibits the various working methods of 17 photographic artists from Portland, OR and Milwaukee, WI. Similar in size, population, and cultural diversity, Portland and Milwaukee boast vibrant and growing internationally recognized photographic communities while simultaneously fending off their “second city” status to more robust neighboring art markets. Originally exhibited in 2013 at the Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, Pacific Midwest highlighted that Milwaukee, a traditionally smaller art city, offers a climate for the congregation of artists working in a multitude of conceptual and aesthetic strategies to foster a dynamic and integrated community. In this next iteration of the show, Milwaukee welcomes Portland into the fold in order to seek further connection with a photographic community, 2060 miles away, which shares a common multitudinous experience.


In addition to each artist’s individual contribution to the show, Pacific Midwest 2.0 will feature the Milwaukee, Milwaukie Museum, an experimental collaborative experience initiated by the Milwaukee Comma photography collective. Portland artists were invited to respond to their experience visiting the local historical society of Milwaukie, OR, while Milwaukee artists made a response to artifacts witnessed in the Milwaukee Historical Society.  This new museum weaves together the various results from the call to respond, seeking further connection between the artists in the show, as well as investigating where overlap can occur between two geographies that share a common name, but are located thousands of miles apart.

Barbara Ciurej, "Residential Birds of Milwaukee County," Sound Installation

After-Opening Party at our studio with exhibitors from Milwaukee, WI

L to R, Barbara Ciurej, Hon Horvath, Mark Brautigam, Tara Bogart, Kevin Miyazaki, Lindsay Lochman, Naomi Shertsy

Lindsay Lochman, "First White Boy," Christening Gowns and Documents

Pacific Midwest 2.0 Exhibition - INOVA Gallery

In addition to showing selections from Processed Views: Surveying the Industrial Landscape, we had the  opportunity to exhibit two Carleton Watkins prints that inspired some of our views. We are grateful to the American Geographical Society Library, housed in the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's Golda Maier Library, which loaned the prints for the duration of the exhibition. 

Yosemite Falls, 1867, Carleton Watkins

Sugar Loaf, Farrallon Islands, l867, Carleton Watkins

AGS Western Photograph Collection – This collection consists of albumen prints and stereoscopicslides by the photographers of the four great western surveys. These works include: 64 prints by William Henry Jackson, photographer with the Hayden survey, of Yellowstone, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and the Moqui Indian Pueblos of Arizona; 6 prints of the Grand Canyon region by John K. Hillers, photographer with the Powell survey; 49 prints and stereoscopic slides by William Bell, photographer with the Wheeler survey; and 441 prints and stereoscopic slides by Timothy O’Sullivan, photographer with the King and Wheeler surveys. Also included in this collection are 54 mammoth size prints of Yosemite by Eadweard J. Muybridge and 76 prints by Carleton E. Watkins.