The Wisconsin Project: Found: Landing of Nicolet, Green Bay, WI

27.11.13

Found: Landing of Nicolet, Green Bay, WI

Found: Landing of Nicolet, Green Bay, Wis.
Verso reads: This mural decoration on south wall of east entrance hall of Brown County Court House,
represents the Landing of Jean Nicolet at Red Banks in 1634. He was the first white man to explore this region.
Published by Bosse's New Depot Green Bay, Wis. circle 1934.

The "Landing of Nicolet" postcard interpretation of a 1910 mural painting by Milwaukee-based panorama painter Franz Edward Rohrbeck illustrates the mythic landing of the young French woodland explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nicolet had been living with the Alqonquin tribes (his guides are shown in the canoe behind him) in the wilderness as part of his hot pursuit of fur (mainly beaver) and an ocean trade passageway to China. Native Ho-Chunk people are shown as exotic and cowering while offering the ceremonial calumet while rock star Nicolet, clad in ostentatious silk robe (said to be Chinese damask) accesorized by glistening pistols, asserts his authority. Another artist in another time may have illustrated the spectacle as more peaceable and cooperative, but this performative show of domination apparently resonated culturally in the early 20th century in Northeastern Wisconsin. Based on a mural painting (restored by Conrad Schmitt Studios in 2010) at the Brown County Courthouse (100 South Jefferson Street, Green Bay), this postcard reflects an American social milieu where Native peoples were marginalized and colonialism was rationalized. So culturally canonical was this scene, that a version was used on a U.S. postage stamp in 1934 celebrating the Wisconsin Trecentenary of Nicolet's landing at "Red Banks". The stamp version was based on an earlier circa 1907 mural at the State Capitol in Madison by Edward Willard Deming who is said to have associated throughout his life with Native Americans and hence more clearly articulated the humanity of the natives in his mural. Note the phrase "The first white man"used in the postcard caption with no white guilt. The Wisconsin Trecentenary was also marked by ceremonies and a speech by FDR. The image can be read as evidence of the American power and identity struggles that enabled "the white man" to separate native peoples from their homelands.

Found: Wisconsin Trecenenary (1634-1934) postage stamp

Found: Landfall of Jean Nicolet in Wisconsin (1907)
by Edward Willard Deming on view in the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison

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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.