Villard Library art commission puts community first

Construction of the new Villard Square Library, set to open in Fall 2011.

Two Milwaukee based artists will have a hand in the transformation of Milwaukee’s newest Library. Paul Kjelland and Nicolas Lampert were officially awarded the contract late last week, and will begin work on the Villard Square branch (located on 35th St. and Villard) in the coming months.

The project is funded by a collaboration between Milwaukee Public Libraries, The Milwaukee Arts Board, The MPL Foundation and the city of Milwaukee. A call to artists was put out in early January and garnered 24 proposals — mostly submitted by artists living and working in Milwaukee.

Respectively, Lampert and Kjelland’s works draw upon themes of urban sprawl, ecology and social justice. Instead of installing their own work into the space, Lampert says that their proposal and subsequent plan will depend largely on the response from the community.

Designs for the Children’s section of the new library, by Engberg Anderson Architects

“Paul and I were very specific in our proposal that, if selected, we wanted to work closely with the community in deciding the themes that the community would like to see in their new library. We purposely decided not to simply install our art in the space. Rather, we plan to integrate art throughout the space and work closely with the interior designers and the architects to create an environment that works in harmony with the building design.”

Good. We won’t be getting “plop art”  with no reference to the location or the environment surrounding it. Certainly community input should be the number one consideration.

From the standpoint of experience, certainly Kjelland and Lampert have lots in working on projects that define something other than stuff hung in a gallery; Lampert is a member of Just Seeds Art Collective and Kjelland is active in a variety of cooperative-based endeavors, most recently the Riverwest Public House Tavern.

As soon as they were notified of their acceptance, the duo scheduled two community meetings at the Villard Avenue Library to begin the community engagement process.

Images courtesy Engberg Anderson Architects.

Scheduled are:

• A listening session on Monday, May 2 (5:30 – 7:30), where community members can share their thoughts about the types of themes, histories and stories they would like to see in their library.
• A follow-up meeting on Monday, May 23rd (5:30 – 7:30pm), where the two artists will present examples of how they plan to integrate the ideas voiced from the prior listening session.

The key to successful due diligence, of course, is that people show up with ideas. Public art is, and should be, all about collaboration.

“Their work is about telling the stories of the community – its history, character and sense of itself,” says Robison. “They will be asking people to contribute information, stories, images and more that may be incorporated into or inspiration for the final work … so the public can be more engaged and feel more ownership in the work and in their branch library.”

The public meetings for the Villard Square library will take place at theVillard Avenue Library, 3310 W. Villard Avenue.