The Wisconsin Project: Found: Golden Rondelle Theater, Racine, WI

10.10.12

Found: Golden Rondelle Theater, Racine, WI


Found: "Golden Rondelle Theater, Johnson Wax Tower in the background, Racine, Wisconsin" copyright L.L. Cook Co. from an Ektachrome Transparency, circa 1967

Another 1964 New York World's Fair pavilion that landed back in Wisconsin looking like a UFO vision. Designed for SC Johnson by Lippincott and Margulies, the Golden Rondelle Theater was reworked by Taliesin Associate Architects to be the "center for Guest Relations" for SC Johnson and opened to the public in July 1967. Seemingly derivative of Frank Lloyd Wright's Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church (below) in nearby Wauwatosa completed in 1961, the Golden Rondelle brought SC Johnson into the mod space age 1960s with its products protecting consumers from dust (Pledge!), stink (Glade!), dull windows (Windex!), stale food (Ziploc!), and clogged drains (Drano!). Meanwhile up north in Neillsville, the similarly galactic Wisconsin Pavilion, by architect John Steinman of Monticello, Wisconsin, once featured a replica of "The World's Largest Cheese" leftover from the Fair but it vanished years ago. The World's Largest Talking Cow, Chatty Belle, remains bringing us back home although her coin operated talking apparatus doesn't always work and her calf Bullet has been vandalized on numerous occasions. A gift shop featuring Wisconsin products from cheese to maple syrup, and a radio station operate out of the space.

Found: "Annunciation Greek Othodox Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin"
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, erected 1961, seating capacity 800
from an Ektachrome Transparency by the L.L. Cook Company, Milwaukee, Wis.

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THE WISCONSIN PROJECT

Our research-driven Wisconsin Project contemplates the rooted-ness and state-of-mind resulting from inhabiting a single place, our native Wisconsin, for a long time. Through critiquing postcard views both made and found, we learn a great deal about past and present Wisconsin. We began making postcard views of the places immediately around our studio and on our drives around Wisconsin in about 2008. We use the vintage postcard film format and print the cards in palladium and cyanotype. By communicating details of a specific place, seeming to register only marginally on the national radar, the project seeks to bring audiences into a Wisconsin mental space. Some in the art world would argue that the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, makes for banal “fly over” subject matter. Our project challenges that by finding meaning in the ordinary and inviting audiences to examine, dialog, and reflect on the particular emotional quality of the idiosyncrasies of place and the perceptions of those both inside and outside of it. Sometimes distant memories are involved and a longing for a time now gone. Wisconsin’s glacier inflected landscape and proximity to the Great Lakes creates an exotic arena for living that informs our project. The life cycle plays out and rural and urban ruins serve as monuments to existences as people, places, and ideas surface then vanish. Ultimately, we aim to grapple with complex perceptions of Wisconsin ranging from nostalgic, romantic, and idealized--as depicted on myriad real photo postcard and standard tourist postcards--to mysterious, dark, and Gothic as conveyed in works of art and literature such as Michael Lesy's "Wisconsin Death Trip" book and Werner Herzog's "Stroszek" film. The project culminated in a residency with workshops and community collaborations and the installation "We Go From Where We Know" at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center 10.13.2013-3.7.2014 and later the Harvestore Bandshell for Fermentation Fest in 10.2014. The blog continues the exploration of postcards.