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Articles by Rafael Salas
Gelsy Verna's Pleading Monument
"Mother, Father, Please Help Me." This entreaty, written by artist Gelsy Verna, serves as both the title of her monumental drawing and her current exhibition at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition is comprised of a single artwork, an all-over composition which brings together gestural abstraction, collage, figuration, text, systemic drawing, culture and religion. Deeply imagined, Verna's hand communicates an authentic vulnerability. Verna was born and raised in Haiti.
Bettina Captures Birth, Death and the Infinite at Ruth Arts in Milwaukee
Installation view of “Original Order Order Original: The Art and Archives of Bettina,” at Ruth Arts, 2025/Photo: Alex Marks Fire, resurrection and the infinite. These are the propellants that fueled the artistic life of Bettina Grossman, known simply as Bettina. “Original Order Order Original: The Art and Archives of Bettina” launches the Ruth Foundation for the Arts’ second season of programming in Milwaukee.
La custodia del territorio por los estamentos locales es la mejor defensa contra el fuego
Cada verano, España arde. Solo este mes de agosto ha concentrado 20 de los más de 60 grandes incendios registrados este año en nuestro país y más de 359.000 hectáreas calcinadas, según el Sistema Europeo de Información sobre Incendios Forestales (EFFIS). España es el país europeo más afectado por el fuego este año, con más de 440 municipios dañados y ayudas activadas en cinco comunidades autónomas.
Custodiar el territorio, la mejor defensa contra el fuego
Cada verano, España arde. Solo el pasado mes de agosto concentró 20 grandes incendios y más de 359.000 hectáreas calcinadas, según el Sistema Europeo de Información sobre Incendios Forestales (EFFIS). Pero el fuego no solo devora bosques y paisajes, arrasa también la base económica, social y cultural de comunidades que ya sufren problemas estructurales de despoblación, envejecimiento y falta de servicios.
Custodiar el territorio: la mejor defensa contra las llamas
Cada verano, España arde. Solo este mes de agosto concentra 20 grandes incendios y más de 359.000 hectáreas calcinadas, según el Sistema Europeo de Información sobre Incendios Forestales (EFFIS). Pero el fuego no solo devora bosques y paisajes, arrasa también con la base económica, social y cultural de comunidades que ya sufren problemas estructurales de despoblación, envejecimiento y falta de servicios.
Custodiar el territorio: la mejor defensa contra el fuego
Cada verano, España arde. Solo este mes de agosto concentra 20 grandes incendios y más de 359.000 hectáreas calcinadas, según el Sistema Europeo de Información sobre Incendios Forestales (EFFIS). Pero el fuego no solo devora bosques y paisajes, arrasa también con la base económica, social y cultural de comunidades que ya sufren problemas estructurales de despoblación, envejecimiento y falta de servicios.
Custodiar el territorio: la mejor defensa contra el fuego
Cada verano, España arde. Solo este mes de agosto concentra 20 grandes incendios y más de 359.000 hectáreas calcinadas, según el Sistema Europeo de Información sobre Incendios Forestales (EFFIS). Pero el fuego no solo devora bosques y paisajes, arrasa también con la base económica, social y cultural de comunidades que ya sufren problemas estructurales de despoblación, envejecimiento y falta de servicios.
Custodiar el territorio: la mejor defensa contra el fuego
Cada verano, España arde. Solo este mes de agosto concentra 20 grandes incendios y más de 359.000 hectáreas calcinadas. Pero el fuego no solo devora bosques y paisajes, arrasa también con la base económica, social y cultural de comunidades que ya sufren problemas estructurales de despoblación, envejecimiento y falta de servicios. Lejos de hacer un artículo oportunista, es oportuno analizar las siguientes razones de fondo.
Rural Art Residencies Thrive in Wisconsin
This story is part of the Art in Wisconsin guide featured in our July/August 2025 issue. Nested within rustic landscapes, far from urban art centers, artist residencies thrive and survive in the rural regions of Wisconsin. In these spaces, artists develop not only their own artistic practices, but also foster relationships with agrarian traditions and local communities. Artists work in environments that directly influence, and intervene, with conventional art-making.
Cell therapies are the future of healthcare, why are we struggling to make them at scale?
The future of healthcare is undeniably heading toward cell therapies, as they offer hope for diseases where, to date, we have not been able to provide treatments or cures. These therapies could revolutionise how we treat conditions like cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases. In the UK alone, for example, we expect to see increases from two advanced therapies being approved per year to 10-15 by 2030, and the industry is predicted to grow 23% from 2024 to 2030.
The Acceleration of History" at Milwaukee Art Museum
An inflection point in culture and politics has emerged as our nation leans deeply rightward and allies itself to capitalist strongmen. Robert Longo may be one of the few and best artists to document this change, since he has reflected on images of power and vulnerability in his photorealist drawings for many years. “The Acceleration of History” at the Milwaukee Art Museum is a testament to the power of images to hold a mirror to ourselves.
Lois Bielefeld at OS Projects in Racine, Wisconsin
The romantic notion that the world contains pristine wilderness, untouched by human intervention, is behind us now. Our fraught history of colonization and extraction has extended to every corner of the globe. The concept of what is wild or natural must be redefined to suit this new now. In a developing body of work, photographer Lois Bielefeld explores these themes within the contemporary landscape. Bielefeld took a road trip across the country.
A Look at "Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the Twentieth Century"
The laws and legacy of Jim Crow were woven deeply into the fabric of post-Civil War America. African Americans remained disenfranchised and threatened in their daily lives throughout the country. The creativity of Black artists and musicians in the early twentieth century was necessarily diminished. How can one maintain a productive creative practice under the burden of codified racial violence and economic disparity?
The Best Crypto Recovery Experts to Hire / Captain WebGenesis. - Cost Accounts - Accounts
The most genuine Bitcoin recovery expert with the special hacking knowledge and abilities needed to recover lost Bitcoin is Captain WebGenesis. Although there are a lot of recovery websites available, you should exercise caution because 99 percent of them are run by con artists that pose as trustworthy. It is always advisable to go for a reliable Expert Captain WebGenesis who can assist you in getting your money back.
"Novel Ecosystems" at Saint Kate Arts Hotel in Milwaukee
Ecology. Technology. The very future of human civilization. These concerns, endemic to our emergent Anthropocene age, are among the anxieties and fears we live with everyday. Artists are reflecting these concerns in ever more experimental and impassioned ways. “Novel Ecosystems,” currently on view in the gallery at Saint Kate Arts Hotel in Milwaukee, is a tightly curated examination of this hyper-contemporary state of our world.
An exhibit at the School of Human Ecology offers a new model for education
Higher education is on a precipice. Colleges have begun to trade the value of study in the humanities and arts for job centered training. Our culture will necessarily reckon with this revision of our values. Terms such as “workforce needs,” and the spiraling costs of college tuition have confronted academia with an existential crisis; how to allow access for students to a rich education, prepare them for work in the future, and be financially secure.
View From the Top: A Review of “50 Paintings” at the Milwaukee Art Museum
“Look for light/shadow. Consider pictorial space.” These directives, among others, are printed on stairs leading to an open-ended survey of paintings by artists at the peak of their practice at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
El tenso cruce entre Haro y Salas
Uno de los puntos candentes en la Junta del Betis ha sido el 9, referente a la revocación de la ampliación de capital solicitada por el grupo de Rafael Salas, Joaquín Caro Ledesma y Francisco Galera. Este punto ha sido incluido por el actual consejo de administración dentro de un complemento a la solicitud presentada por estos tres accionistas de referencia, el cual también ha negado dicha revocación.
Caro Ledesma, Galera y Salas solicitan al consejo la revocación de la ampliación de capital
Tres accionistas de referencia en el Betis, como Rafael Salas, Joaquín Caro Ledesma y Francisco Galera han enviado un escrito al actual consejo de administración del club de Heliópolis para que en la próxima Junta de Accionistas, de carácter general y extraordinaria, se incluyan cuatro puntos en el orden del día en referencia a la revocación de los acuerdos alcanzados sobre la ampliación de capital en la Junta extraordinario del pasado 25 de agosto y también en cuanto a una mayor...
Ruben Alcantar Will Paint Mural In Black Cat Alley
The East Side Business Improvement District (BID) has selected Milwaukee artist Ruben Alcantar to paint a new mural in Black Cat Alley. In August, the BID put out an open call for artists to create a new mural in the alley, which is a street art installation running north and south between E. Kenilworth Place and N. Ivanhoe Place on the city’s East Side.
The Madeleine Moment: A Review of “Florence/Somerset” at Alice Wilds Gallery
Like Marcel Proust’s madeleine, the smallest of things—a smell or the slant of light—can offer us the most profound experience of memory and nostalgia. Artists Breehan James and Barbara Sullivan have taken the quotidian, a family cabin in northern Wisconsin and the daily discoveries of the domesticated and natural world, and have together curated an exhibition of deep emotional clarity.
Milwaukee Streetware Brand Wins National Attention
In art, the butterfly endures as an eternal symbol of redemption, rebirth and renewal. Fashion designer, artist and business owner Brema Brema has claimed this symbol for his own, and with it has catapulted his brand, Unfinished Legacy, to the forefront of creative production in Milwaukee. On July 8, Unfinished Legacy opened its flagship store at 201 N. Water St. in the Historic Third Ward.
Primary Whole-gland Ablation for the Treatment of Clinically Localized Prostate Cancer: A Focal Therapy Society Best Practice Statement
Abstract Whole-gland ablation is a feasible and effective minimally invasive treatment for localized prostate cancer (PCa). Previous systematic reviews supported evidence for favorable functional outcomes, but oncological outcomes were inconclusive owing to limited follow-up.
Visual Art: Crazy About Color
Painter Pat Hidson has been making art at a professional level for more than 40 years. She is a bundle of energy and that intensity reverberates from every one of her recent works in the current exhibit at MOWA St. John’s on the Lake. Take a painting like “Emersyn’s Study,” which refers to her eight-year-old great niece’s room during the COVID-19 lockdown.
A New Vision: A Review of Milwaukee’s Sarah Ball Allis Art Museum
The newly christened Sarah Ball Allis Museum in Milwaukee has a story to tell, one reclaimed from a too-familiar past. The museum is a genteel residence housing an eclectic collection of art and furniture. Charles Allis was an industrialist at the turn of the century and became president of the newly formed Allis-Chalmers Company in 1905, which made farming equipment and tractors. One can see versions of this museum across the country, in museums with names like Frick or perhaps Glessner.
Profiling on HB Series with AMD uProf
Profiling can be performed on Azure HPC VMs with various tools. Today we are going to look at MPI application profiling with AMD uProf. AMD uProf is a tool for performance and system analysis. AMD uProf can gather time and instruction-based profiles. As well as tracing and visualizing MPI processes/threads. Profiling is the analysis of an application’s execution via the measurement of system metrics.
Visual Art: Powerful Art By Prison Inmates
The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. Currently, there are 2.3 million individuals in the nation’s criminal justice system. This fact hovers over a remarkable project that has unfolded into an expansive declaration of visibility, of resilience and of healing. “Art Against the Odds” is the first museum-scaled exhibition of artwork created by currently or formerly incarcerated people in Wisconsin.
Sculpture Milwaukee Announces 2023 Curator
Sculpture Milwaukee has named artist John Riepenhoff as the curator of the 2023 exhibition. The annual outdoor showcase exhibits public art in various places around downtown Milwaukee, centered on Wisconsin Avenue. The non-profit launched the annual exhibition to serve “as a catalyst for community engagement, economic development, and creative placemaking.” Riepenhoff is a Milwaukee-based artist, gallerist and curator who has shown his work around the world.
Celestial Aspirations: A Review of David R. Harper’s “Zodiac” at the Racine Art Museum
Artists necessarily trick with magic. This may sound like an art cliché, and some formalists might bristle, but it’s true. At some point in their work, an artist creates something even they couldn’t imagine, something the world has never seen before. David R. Harper’s “Zodiac,” on view at the Racine Art Museum, aspires to the celestial to describe our own quotidian natures.
Theater: Skylight’s ‘Mamma Mia’ All About the Songs
Concocted in Britain in 1999 and later the perfect 2001 Broadway antidote to 9/11 blues, Mamma Mia! continues its reign to this day as the biggest jukebox musical of all time – with multiple still active touring productions, a hit movie and a movie sequel.
Theater: Rep Remembers Nat King Cole
The Stackner Cabaret concept that opens the Milwaukee Rep’s new season may not be quite the Unforgettable experience its title suggest. But it is a pleasant concert diversion with extremely capable musicians more accurately described in its subtitle: “John-Mark McGaha Sings Nat King Cole.” McGaha is not a Nat imitator but a polished baritone and cabaret veteran who has performed other celebrities in concert.
Dining: Ventura’s Tacos Is The Real Thing
I found Ventura’s Tacos on a sunny morning on my way to take a walk in Bay View. As I drove south on KK, I noticed someone wiping the morning dew off the chairs on a tiny patio facing the street. That suggested someone, probably the owner of this small restaurant on the corner of S. Kinnickinnic Ave. and S. Ellen St., took pride in his restaurant. It was time for a visit.
Art: Let Us Now Praise William Kentridge
William Kentridge is one of the greatest living artists. His work combines a deeply held world view revolving around social justice combined with a neo-expressionist drawing practice, ranging expansively to include animation, film, opera and assemblage. The artist achieves a singular artistic gestalt, a vital visual language exposing inequity while simultaneously preserving joy and an infectious sense of play. Kentridge, a native of Johannesburg, South Africa, is the son of anti-apartheid lawyers.
Reclaiming Memory: A Review of Herman Aguirre at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery
Herman Aguirre, “Herida | 4828,” 2020, oil and acrylic skins on panel, 32 x 32 x 3 inches/Image courtesy Zolla/Leiberman Gallery Herman Aguirre explores the corporeal nature of memory in his exhibition at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery. His work is a testimonial to a community struggling with violence, those that witness this struggle and the desire to remember those who have died. His goal is to create portraiture from absence, to revivify objects made from longing.
La Constitución, nuestro mayor colectivo
Nuestra Constitución cumple 43 años de vigencia. Su aprobación en nuestra dorada Transición respondió a un espíritu modélico de responsabilidad, diálogo y consenso entre las fuerzas políticas y sociales, vital para un periodo transcendental en la historia de España: el tránsito de la dictadura a la democracia.
La Constitución, nuestro mayor colectivo
Opinión JAVIER ARENAS RAFAEL SALAS Actualizado Martes, 7 diciembre 2021 - 00:55 Los autores desean que el socialismo de Sánchez rectifique para poder fortalecer el consenso constitucional y subrayan que es responsabilidad de PP y PSOE alcanzar pactos que integren a todos los ciudadanos Un policía camina junto a las banderas autonómicas desplegadas a la entrada del Congreso.Chema MoyaEFE Nuestra Constitución cumple 43 años de vigencia.
Signs of gentrification
Fatima Laster is a fierce and unapologetic advocate. Three years ago she opened 5 Points Art Gallery and Studios in Milwaukee as a space focused on increasing visibility for underrepresented artists. Since then her gallery has expanded its scope and reach. Laster’s ambition has brought her to the attention of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. She has been invited to be the first guest curator of the museum’s much lauded, and equally critiqued, Wisconsin Triennial, opening in April 2022.
Visual Art: Art Museum’s Spanish Show A Treat
Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial, 1660–65. Oil on canvas, 81 × 56 3/4 in. (206 × 144 cm). Museo Nacional de Prado, Madrid, P000972. © Museo Nacional del Prado The Golden Age of Spanish painting is lauded for its use of earthy, figurative realism and an open, overt use of the paintbrush.
Majestic Textiles: A Review of Shari Urquhart’s Mustn’t Touch
Shari Urquhart, “Gimme, Take Me, Buy Me,” 1987-88. Wool, mohair, metallic fiber, acrylic, yarn & silk fibers, 87 x 132 inches “Mustn’t Touch.” So said a talking parrot to a young girl trying to steal chocolates. This perhaps apocryphal story was told by artist Shari Urquhart, recalling a childhood memory. True or not, the idea of a girl chastised in her quest for the forbidden bears a resemblance to Urquhart’s artistic career.
Madrid Central: evidencia científica
El fallo del Tribunal Supremo por el que no se admite a trámite el recurso impuesto por Economistas en Acción en contra de la sentencia de anulación de la zona de baja emisiones de Madrid Central por el TSJ de Madrid, a instancia del recurso del Grupo Popular en el Ayuntamiento de Madrid, es una mala noticia.
Reinvention, Revolution: An Experiment in the Museum of the Future is Taking Shape in Appleton, Wisconsin
“Unraveled. Restructured. Revealed,” installation view, Trout Museum of Art, 2021 Beyond the borders of the metropolitan art world, among a string of small, industrial towns in central Wisconsin, an experiment in the museum of the future is taking shape. Artist and curator Tyanna Buie sees our world as a post-George Floyd society. We will never be the same, or, that is the hope. The role of the artist, and the museum, has come to reflect this new reality.
Abstracting Lived Experience: A Review of Leslie Smith III at Hawthorn Contemporary
Leslie Smith III, “Redaction,” oil on shaped canvas, 62.5 x 118 inches, 2017 Leslie Smith III assembles geometric abstractions into multi-panel paintings. Their quasi-sculptural depths reveal a dream of political provocation and possibility. The paintings read like investigations of composition, color and surface. They feel formal, analyzed.
Civics Lesson: A Review of Sculpture Milwaukee
“Apollo/Poll,” 2017 by Nari Ward, Sculpture Milwaukee 2020/Photo: Kevin J. Miyazaki for Sculpture Milwaukee Milwaukee, like so many cities, has been forced to forego seminal events that would draw excitement and build community. Summerfest, one of the grandest music festivals in the country, was silenced this year. The Democratic National Convention, which to be held in the Milwaukee Convention Center, took place mainly by remote means.
A Milwaukee Artist Finds Power in the Quotidian: A Review of Ariana Vaeth at Lynden Sculpture Garden
Ariana Vaeth, “Dye Party,” 2019, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 inches Not much really happens in the paintings of Ariana Vaeth. They are domestic, infused with calm and quiet whimsy. Within this realm, Vaeth has created ambiguous, surprisingly powerful painted narratives. This exhibition marks a significant formal leap for this young artist. She describes a woman’s world, a milieu of friends who talk, flirt and fancy each other’s company. It is celebratory and insightful.
The Chipstone Foundation Offers a Quiet Remove for Examining American Material Culture
Maker Space at the Chipstone Foundation A cabinet of wonders waits in a lonely mansion north of Milwaukee. I hope you get to see it. Using curatorial practices centered around discovery and inquiry, the Chipstone Foundation brings vitality to objects and to their stories. The Chipstone Foundation is devoted to promoting and interpreting American material culture, mainly decorative objects, for scholars, students and the public.
Panache, But Not Enough Potency: A Review of A Cat May Look On A Queen at The Green Gallery
Installation view, “A Cat May Look On A Queen,” The Green Gallery/Photo: Myrica von Haselberg “I like this title and this proverb because I’m still not really sure what it means,” writes Eric Ruschman in his curatorial statement for “A Cat May Look On A Queen,” on view at The Green Gallery in Milwaukee. Ruschman appears comfortable with ambiguity. His exhibition threads the group of artists he has gathered around this mysterious mantra. At some level it’s about cats.
Visual Art: The Arcadian Dream of Greendale, WI
Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee Daffodil House. Photo by Jason Reblando. In an age of disparity, polarization and environmental cataclysm, one thing seems clear to me – utopia is a myth. No one lives peacefully without consequence.
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