For the past four years, Sculpture Milwaukee has brought astounding works from nationally-known and internationally-appreciated artists to various spots scattered through the city’s downtown. The innovative and interesting exhibitions offer free, evocative, and (as we learned last year) pandemic-proof fun for the whole family. Sculpture Milwaukee is returning for a fifth year, starting to make its presence known with new works this month—with most installations taking place between now and early July—and running through the autumn of 2022.
The fifth exhibition, there is this We, is guest curated by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates and Milwaukee’s Michelle Grabner, who are bringing a dynamic roster of pieces from local and international artists to town. There are (and there are soon to be) new works from Thaddeus Mosley, Jason Pickleman, and Brad Kahlhamer, as well as contributions from Kevin Beasley, Betty Gold, Kara Hamilton, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, Deborah Kass, Matthias Neumann, Virginia Overton, Dan Peterman, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, John Riepenhoff, Christine Tarkowski, and Lauren Yeager.
There’s also a sculpture from Allison Janae Hamilton that features more than 400 painted tambourines that are stacked into a 16-foot-tall tower. The 2018 piece, The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm, was installed in Museum Center Park near Milwaukee Art Museum. According to Sculpture Milwaukee, Hamilton’s sculpture is “continually activated by the weather conditions of its environment” and it “contemplates the way in which climate-related disasters expose existing social inequities, and how affected communities contend with both forms of devastation.”
The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm‘s installation took place Tuesday morning and afternoon. We stopped by in the early-going to observe the artistic undertaking. Fortunately, Sculpture Milwaukee filmed the entire installation and released a timelapse video. Get ready for what’s sure to be an incredible Sculpture Milwaukee exhibition and check out the video below.