John Riepenhoff
Site: Earthbound Beer
John Riepenhoff is known for his fluid negotiations of art and its accompanying support structures. Through his ongoing project to promote collective cultural expression by supporting artist-run organizations, known as Beer Endowment, Riepenhoff has created numerous conceptual beers that support the artist spaces they are inspired by. For example, artists Michelle Grabner and Brad Killiam’s spaces The Suburban and Poor Farm were met with an annual pilsner; the FRONT Triennial inspired his Experimental Kolsch; and in Riepenhoff’s own space The Green Gallery, visitors will find a roving roster of beers dating back to his early experiments. These tests blur the structure, experience, and consumption of art to bolster Riepenhoff’s widening gyre of collaborators.
For Counterpublic, John Riepenhoff has collaborated with Cherokee Street-based craft brewery Earthbound Beer to createThe Luminary Counterlager. TheCounterlager, contrary to its name, is a Belgian Amber Ale brewed with locally grown hops, Masa sources from a local Mexican grocer, and balanced with a number of imported ingredients. Inspired by the dark drinkability of Negra Modelo and Vienna lagers, and embracing a hyper-local and global view simultaneously, the Counterlager speaks to The Luminary’s local, national, and international publics and commitment to complex, yet accessible, forms of exchange.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
John Riepenhoff was born in 1982 in Milwaukee, WI where he lives and received a BFA from the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He is represented by Marlborough Contemporary, NY & London.
Riepenhoff is also a curator and co-owner of The Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, collaborator at The Open, co-organizer of Milwaukee International and Dark Fairs, is an inventor of artistic platforms for the expression of others and regular food ideator. His recent exhibitions and curatorial projects have been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Marlborough, and Swiss Institute New York, NY; Tate Modern, London; Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, AR; 356 Mission Rd, Los Angeles, CA; Poor Farm, WI; Lynden Sculpture Garden, Inova, and The Suburban, Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, GA. He also continues a program of the John Riepenhoff Experience at various locations around the world, most recently at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and Misako and Rosen, Tokyo. He was the 2015 Milwaukee Arts Board Artist of the Year, co-chairs Friends of Blue Dress Park, founded Milwaukee’s first Beer Endowment for artist-run organizations, runs The Oven at The Open in Milwaukee, and sits on the board of Riverwest Radio.
