The Wisconsin Project: Harvestore Dealership Sign, New Holstein, WI

27.7.14

Harvestore Dealership Sign, New Holstein, WI

Former Harvestore Dealership Sign (Lakeside), Hayton Road near New Holstein, Wisconsin (2.21.2014)
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

The American Revolution Commission, established in 1966, called on all people and communities across the country to do something to celebrate the US Bicentennial in 1976. Harvestore contributed to the "spirit" by adding US flags to their structures, which towered over the rural landscape in increasing numbers. Rural legend had it that the flag on Harvestores signified it was paid for. A reliable source claims that in fact the flags were Harvestore's contribution to the Bicentennial celebration. After Vietnam and Nixon's resignation, the Bicentennial inspired nostalgia, patriotism, and "looking to the future with hope" as Nixon himself proclaimed in a speech years before Watergate. Decades later we found this Harvestore still decorated with the flag while being repurposed as a sign for a rural contracting company.

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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.