Open your eyes to the world of lobby art

In the days of kings and queens when castles were big and fuel was cheap, it was likely okay to have bare-bones entry halls decorated with a few skins and maybe a crossbow or two. You might say today’s condos are the castles of urban kings and queens seeking to experience luxe when they stumble into the lobby of their newly acquired piece of heaven, and never would they okay  a withering plant and a tired-looking desk clerk (wearing blue jeans) at the granite-topped front desk. No, today’s discriminating buyer wants at least one roaring gas-log fireplace, acres of cushy leather couches, art (or at least a facsimile of), perhaps a splashing fountain and (at the granite-topped front desk), a smartly uniformed, carefully groomed person to meet their every need.

To each his own when one comes “home.”

“Fit for a Roman emperor” is what architect Peter Renner envisioned for the BreakWater lobby. If columns capped with crowns of leaves are your thing, the Kingdom is yours. Hold it! Is Renner poking fun at pretentious living? Nearby is a community room, where paintings signed, “Renner,” hang. Whoa! They’re by Renner’s wife No. 1. On the south wall is a huge painting of a chic lady standing next to an airplane. My tour guide said it was by a contemporary Chinese artist.
This place is awash with photographs signed, “Pierre Renee.” More mediocrity reigns on the walls of a Third Ward pizza grill. A pizza person confirmed that Monsieur Renee is most assuredly a Renner named Peter.
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The Point On The River has a lobby that trumps the BreakWater’s. It’s BLUE (as in lotsa blue), maybe to fool you into thinking the Milwaukee River is blue, which it isn’t. The lobby itself seems to be in motion, with wavy lines on the walls, underfoot and overhead. Speaking of up, is that a Chihuly chandelier? It’s glassy blue with white tentacles snaking outward and upward. Uh-oh; it’s a fake Chihuly, but who cares when you’re ogling Miami Vice meets Water World?
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The 1924 Shorecrest Hotel is currently for sale. In the east lobby is a superb bronze sculpture of Duret’s Neapolitan Fisherboy Dancing the Tarantella. One other exists … in the Louvre. This is the real McCoy of a dancing boy.

A few years ago, I volunteered to find a piece of art to fill the 5 foot-by-5 foot space in the exterior lobby of my building. The condo board’s requirements? Can’t be stolen; won’t injure; won’t offend and won’t exceed budgetary constraints.

My requirements: no images of fowl winging across the lake; nothing nautical; no LED lights, spinning parts, images of big-eyed kids or Up North critters; and no Packers’ stuff. The board finally hired (for $3,000) Doug Holst, a Wisconsin-based artist with solid credentials. It took three weeks to complete the work it took me three years to locate. The maintenance guy hates the colors.

Hold on, we have two lobbies. Over the fireplace in the interior lobby is a gigantic steel and glass “star.” Real estate agents like it. So does the maintenance guy, but not me. It fights with our modernist architecture.

The former executive director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Russell Bowman, brokered the art for the lobby of the University Club Tower. Judge for yourself on this one.

I expected the Mandel Group to go overboard in the Marine Terminal Lofts lobby. But it’s stunningly spartan and dull as nails. Verdict: Zilch personality.

Mandel Plans Lakefront High-Rise