ENTERTAINMENT

Sculpture Milwaukee announces 2018 artists for Wisconsin Avenue; installation starts May 10

Mary Louise Schumacher

Art critic

Tony Cragg's "Mixed Feelings," part of last year's Sculpture Milwaukee, has been gifted to the City of Milwaukee by an anonymous donor and was installed Monday in front of City Hall.

Cairo-born artist Ghada Amer creates artwork that celebrates female power while also expressing something about the oppression of women around the world.

An ovum-shaped sculpture, "The Blue Bra Girls," with its lattice of lines drawn in steel, was inspired by a photo of a protester who was beaten during the Egyptian uprising of 2011. That woman was dragged through the streets, exposing her torso and blue bra.

Amer's provocative work of sculpture is one of 21 artworks that will be part of this year's iteration of Sculpture Milwaukee, an urban showcase of modern and contemporary sculpture along Wisconsin Avenue, meant to attract art lovers and unsuspecting office workers alike.

"This is my way of making a eulogy to the brave women who endure physical violence for democracy," Amer told reporters in 2013, speaking of the piece. "The woman in the photo was tackled to the ground, but the women in my sculpture stand proudly with their eyes wide open."

"Blue Bra Girls" by Egyptian-born artist Ghada Amer will be part of Sculpture Milwaukee this year. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.

Ana Prvački will bring the shadow of a Michelangelo work to the streets of Milwaukee; Hank Willis Thomas will contribute his mashup of the Statue of Liberty and a Harlem Globetrotter; and Milwaukee-based collaborative team Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg will create a sculpture from a felled Wisconsin tree.

Other artists included in this year's temporary exhibit include Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sanford Biggers, Yoan Capote, Richard Deacons, Tom Friedman, Liz Glynn, John Henry, Gary Hume, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Mel Kendrick, Sol LeWitt, Kiki Smith, Bosco Sodi, Tony Tasset, Bernar Venet and Erwin Wurm.

Sculpture Milwaukee is having an impact on Milwaukee's public art landscape. One of the works included in last year's inaugural exhibition, Tony Cragg's "Mixed Feelings," has been donated to the City of Milwaukee by an anonymous donor and was installed Monday in front of City Hall. The immense piece of intertwined bronze towers that swirl skyward includes human profiles that come into and out of focus. A metaphor perhaps for political debate?

This year's outdoor installation will not include the work of Mickalene Thomas, as had been previously reported. The organizers and the artist were not able to settle on an appropriate site for what would have been Thomas' first significant public artwork, said Russell Bowman. Bowman, the former director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, is co-curating the temporary exhibit with Marilu Knode, former director of the Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis.

Installation of the works along Wisconsin Ave. will begin May 10, and the exhibit will be on view from June to October. A range of tours, hands-on workshops and other events are being scheduled in conjunction with the installation. More information can be found at sculpturemilwaukee.com.