The Same River Twice

THE SAME RIVER TWICE
A PHOTO-FILM BY DICK BLAU
ACCORDION BY EVAN MARUSZEWSKI
142 WEST WISCONSIN AVE
NIGHTLY FROM 8-11 PM
AUGUST 14-FEBRUARY 14

Using the window of an underutilized storefront on Wisconsin Avenue as my screen, I will rear-project a slow loop of abstract photographs that I have made at the Milwaukee River, which is located a block away. The images explore both the surface and depths of the river, arresting its flow to consider the ways that sun, sky, clouds, wind, current, and reflections of the buildings that line the river all interact in a particular instant.

The Same River Twice does not have a conventional soundtrack to go with the images. It was conceived as a silent film. However, in this Wisconsin Ave version, there will occasionally be music. Four times a month during the run, a musician will appear and improvise on the accordion, turning the installation into a backdrop for street theater.

I have chosen my collaborator already, and I am thrilled to say that he has agreed to do it. His name is Evan Maruszewski. He is the co-founder of The November Criminals, a ground-breaking local avant garde polka band and the curator of Polka Riot, an annual festival of alternative polka music.. Evan plays a soulful and unusually inventive accordion that will sound wonderful when it bounces off the ceramic-covered buildings that line both sides of the location.

The Same River Twice will transform a forlorn space in the very center of downtown Milwaukee every night for six months. The photographs that make up its slow upwelling of image were made at the Milwaukee River not a block away. They are neither representational, at least in any conventional sense, nor do they employ any special effects. Deeply abstract, they turn the familiar into the strange, challenging the imaginations of those who look at them and adding a sense of wonder and surprise to the everyday life of the city. Bringing, from time to time, a live accordion player to improvise with the film should produce a haunting sonic atmosphere –- and bring an element of drama to the street as well.

Dick Blau has a BA from Harvard in English and a PhD from Yale in American Studies. He is the author of six photo books and numerous films on subjects ranging from interpersonal family dynamics to the music and culture of the Roma of northern Greece. Blau also works in installation, with a focus on public art. His POLKA TIME! was a beloved fixture in Milwaukee’s Baird Center for 25 years. His Milwaukee Night and Day was installed on Milwaukee’s main street and ran nightly for fifteen months in 2018-19. Another version, this time made into an actual film, played in the window of Milwaukee’s The Suburban gallery for several months in 2022. www.dickblau.com

Evan Maruszewski is an artist, musician and organizer without enough time in the day. After graduating summa cum laude with a BFA in film and video from UW-Milwaukee’s Peck school of the arts, they have worked as a multimedia director, illustrator, animator, editor, designer,sound engineer, game and web developer, CAD modeler, actor, choreographer and screen printer. They have been performing music on the diatonic melodeon for over two decades both solo and with their bands the November Criminals and Preomnor. They are a founder and organizer of the Milwaukee Polka Riot festival and most recently, the SKANKmke dance series.