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Lois Bielefeld

@loisbielefeld

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A Milwaukee based artist thinking about the messy means of being human.

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In 2019 I started making “Broom Studies” while studying in the graduate program at @calarts_photo_media. “Broom Studies” gave me a space to think about domesticity and the often invisible labor of the home in an abstracted curious way. In these performances, there is futility, humor, and I think some magic (there’s nothing quite like balancing a broom and standing back and looking).

In 2022 I started “Chair Studies” at @acreresidency. Working in a playful and meditative manner I was able to reconsider the chair and its objecthood. I invited artists to perform with me and to some degree we became a beautiful moving organism.

Currently, I’m making new site-specific Studies @villaterracemuseum as a part of an upcoming group exhibition in the fall. -@loisbielefeld

Titles:
Broom Study #33
Broom Study #44
Chair Study #17 featuring w/ Susan Aparicio, Marisa Gómez Cuevas, Hazel Katz, kelechi agwuncha, and Lois Bielefeld
Chair Study #11

#broomstudy #chairstudy #loisbielefeld @portraitsocietygallery #MagentaFoundation #brooming #performanceart #mundane #domesticity #domesticobjects by @loisbielefeld

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3 years ago

And its up! “Holding Multitudes” at Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts in Fond du Lac, WI is up and looking fantastic. The work is from our Praxis art group- and it is so rewarding to see our many rich conversations visually activating the space.
The Opening is this coming Friday, September 25th, from 5:30-7:30 pm.

Thank you @loisbielefeld, @ritagrendze, @thelmaarts51 and @marzena.anna.ziejka for all your hard labor, belief and insight that made this happen. Lois and Rita, it was a joy spending the day with you installing.

"Holding Multitudes" includes work from
@loisbielefeld @hollyacahill @vanessafilly @tlh.gill.studio @ritagrendze
@katherinelampert @tulikaartist @jilllanza @mannebach_art @marzena.anna.ziejka and @yoonshin_park by @loisbielefeld

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a month ago

9.15.26 Spent 24 hours in Fond du Lac installing a GLORIOUS exhibition “Holding Multitudes ” at the Thelma. Thank you to @tlh.gill.studio @loisbielefeld and Shannon Kupfer for putting in looooong hours (you all are fun when loopy). I am honored to have my piece on the card designed by @marzena.anna.ziejka . taken in Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts by @loisbielefeld

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a month ago

Two recent outings in the Studio Log Expanded Field series. Productive, enjoyable, centering conversation with @loisbielefeld and @eeguerra 🙏💯🙏 @mariegeneva78 @k8klingbeil and @chuckstebelton 💕🙏💕 with @flybyonscreens ! These conversations with others navigating the joys and demands of being creative always inspire. By all means: try this at home. And again thanks to those who join
#studiolog #roundrobin taken in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by @loisbielefeld

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6 months ago

A couple of weeks ago we had the grand pleasure to visit Quad Graphics to see Lois Bielefeld in action! Thanks to the team for making us feel at home and sharing with us process of making to print! taken in Sussex, Wisconsin by @loisbielefeld

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6 months ago

I am honored to be in this exhibition with members of the artist collective Praxis. Our group continues to support and challenge each other professionally via monthly meetings, studio visits, exhibitions, shared resources. Grateful!
Join us for the opening on April 10th at Chicago Art Department. It’s EXPO weekend- get some daylight and fresh air while you hit the local galleries after you cruise Navy Pier.
Cover art by Jennifet Mannebach.
Card design by @marzena.anna.ziejka
@vanessafilley
@mannebach_art
@tulikaartist
@tlh.gill.studio
@yoonshin_park
@loisbielefeld
@katherinelampert
@jilllanza
@hollyacahill
And curated by the marvelous @mkennedystudios taken in Chicago Art Department by @loisbielefeld

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7 months ago

Excited to see the updates of activation of Melissa Dorn and my exhibition, “Accumulation- A Study in Utility” on view currently at Abel Contemporary. In addition to looking, the viewer is invited to weave, broom, puzzle, and document their actions. The exhibit is ever shifting and changing which mimics the cyclical accumulation of domestic labor. “Task with us” until April 19. Artist talk on April 12th at 2PM! @abelcontemporary @melissadornstudio by @loisbielefeld

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7 months ago

Please join us this Friday at Abel Contemporary Gallery’s No. 5 project space for Accumulation: A Study in Utility by Lois Bielefeld and Melissa Dorn. There is a pesky side to being human: the endless war against debris, the relentless nature of domestic labor. Yet within this cycle live tools that span history and cultures — the broom and the mop.
Melissa Dorn has worked with mops as subject and material since 2015. Lois Bielefeld has been making studies of brooms, chairs, and piles since 2019. In gallery no. 5 at Abel Contemporary, they bring these practices together for the first time as a unified, site-specific installation — one that interrogates both the ongoing nature of domestic tasks and what an exhibition can be. Viewers are invited to interact with and reorient the work throughout, becoming agents of chance. @melissadornstudio @abelcontemporary @portraitsocietygallery by @loisbielefeld

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8 months ago

The last week of two person exhibition its own pristine devices, is approaching at Portrait Society in Milwaukee. Last chance to see it. Thank you to all who already visited.
Big thanks to Lois for the fabulous documentation of our shared effort, so that I could share some of the images here. taken in Portrait Society Gallery by @loisbielefeld

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8 months ago

“i can never see it all at once” is one of my favorite moments in my current exhibition with Marzena Ziejka, its own pristine devices, currently on view at @portraitsocietygallery.
When we were initially planning the show, we envisioned a tiny experimental space where our work would collide. I immediately thought about my freeway islands in relationship to Marzena’s work, but then became even more excited about pairing them with endoscopic videos I’ve been making for the past six years. The endoscope offers a way of looking that lets me see under, closely, behind, into crevices—revealing what I couldn’t otherwise see (speaking of this is a puddle in my driveway). But there’s so little control with this camera: I can’t even determine what’s up or down, or predict its movements. I had to let go and just look. A definite challenge for a photo-control-geek like me. These videos started when I was living in Alameda, CA and have continued across locations from my backyard to Cleveland to Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

What’s most mesmerizing is how the work functions in installation with Marzena’s piece, composed of various grasses that interact with the projected video. Light from the projection dances across the grasses while their shadows fall onto the video work, serendipitously referencing my methodology for photographing the freeway islands with artificial lighting. The installation becomes a bridge to the rest of the exhibition—about process, seeing, and making.

Please come see the show before it closes February 28th! @marzena.anna.ziejka @portraitsocietygallery by @loisbielefeld

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9 months ago

A huge thank you to everyone who came out last night to launch Lois Bielefeld and Marzena Ziejka’s exhibition, “its own pristine devices!” What a warm and festive evening and start of 2026.

There will be an artist talk on Saturday, Jan 17 at 2 pm. Free

Please visit the exhibition through Feb 28.
Gallery hours are Thurs-Sat noon to 5 pm

See you soon!
@marzena.anna.ziejka @loisbielefeld by @loisbielefeld

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9 months ago

This Friday please join me for the inaugural film screening, “and the Word was God” at UW-Parkside’s Main Stage Theatre! 630-8pm @uwparkside @portraitsocietygallery About: For a curious several months, Bielefeld watched archived sermons from their childhood and youth while concurrently reading media theory texts. These two very different subjects had an interesting interplay and enmeshing that slowly emerged into and the Word was God (2024). The piece was elusive, and it wasn’t until Shannon Brennan shared a personal oral story that the work finally melded. Throughout the ages media has continued to emerge: through oral history, written text, and most recently AI’s influence. This piece questions the framework(s) of the decimation and assertions of meaning-making, explanations of being, and the development of world views.

Elmbrook Church’s pastor, Stuart Briscoe, pontificates words being a bridge while thinking about understanding through communication. Through a queer conversation, and the Word was God considers two vastly different explanations of the world, evangelical Christianity and media theory, with the unlikely bridge being a shared personal story from Shannon Brennan. Bielefeld interrogates the usage and built systems of media, its technology, and the production of message. Yet it is the oral story that returns humanity to the forefront. by @loisbielefeld

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a year ago