Wisconsin Center Makes Deal to Save Literary Artwork

Wisconsin Center art installation. Photo by Meg Strobel.

Wisconsin Center District CEO Marty Brooks has made a deal that will save most if not all of the literary artwork in the downtown convention center that he had previously planned to dismantle and destroy as part of a $456 million expansion plan for the center.

Brooks, who had made this decision without consulting the WCD board of directors, wrote a memo to them today noting that after collaborative meetings with representatives of the installation’s creators, they had agreed to an approach that will “retain the integrity of the modernization plan” for the expanded convention center “while exploring ways to incorporate the works of the contributors into a new interpretation of the art.”

“I’m happy to share that the effort has yielded a revised and final plan for the installation.”

The nationally unique literary artwork, entitled “Portals and Writings Celebrating Wisconsin Authors,” was installed as part the then-new convention center in 1998, featuring texts spanning four centuries from a diverse group of 48 Wisconsinites. Included are lyrics from an Ojibwe tribe song, indigenous voices Black Sparrow Hawk and Mountain Wolf Woman, and writers Aldo Leopold,Carl Sandburg, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Edna Ferber, John Muir, Lorine Niedecker, Zona Gale, Antler, Kyoko Mori, and Lorrie Moore, among others. A committee of seven people working with the Woodland Pattern literary center, spent a year researching and choosing all the texts, and sculptor Jill Sebastian designed the installation.

The installation took three years to create, as  Karl Gartung, retired artistic director of Woodland Pattern told Urban Milwaukee, which broke the story on Brooks plan to dismantle the artwork. “It seems like an act of cultural vandalism,” he said.

There was an uproar from the Milwaukee arts community with some accusing Brooks of censorship and many signing a petition to save the artwork. Several WCD board members called on Brooks to delay the dismantling. In response Brooks reached out to Sebastian and the current co-executive directors of Woodland Pattern, Laura Solomon and Jenny Gropp, and asked them to offer a counter-proposal on how to handle the artwork within the context of the expanded convention center.

The work is exhibited in two ways: much of the lettering is part of the surface of painted walls, which can be repainted to match any design change Brooks seeks.

That portion of the work, the “Landscape and History” installation and “representing a significant percentage of the entire collection – will remain completely intact,” Brooks promised in a detailed agreement he sent to Sebastian and Woodland Pattern. “Please note as part of the modernization of the south building, it is anticipated the wall will be painted (to which Jill Sebastian has previously indicated the letters are meant to be painted the same color as the wall ….. ‘even purple’).”

The other part of the installation used metallic letters mounted on wood-grained portals to present the text. This work would be dismantled, but with the understanding that it could be recreated and re-installed near the other texts. “The WCD is offering Woodland Pattern use of up to eight (8) of the eleven (11) circular and rectangular support columns, located immediately east of the entrances to ballrooms A/B, along with the western facing facias of the escalators connecting the first and second floors…for the reimagining of any passages being removed. The WCD agrees to pay up to $35,000 for the cost of the creation and installation of this new ‘work for hire’ art,” the agreement states.

Solomon and Gropp told Urban Milwaukee they were pleased with the agreement, as did Sebastian.

“We don’t know if every single word and every single author can be saved but we hope to preserve as much as is possible while also preserving Jill’s artistic integrity,” Gropp said.

Under this plan “the work will be concentrated in one area of the building,” which could result “in a beautiful re-imagining of the work,” Gropp noted.

“I look forward to bringing Wisconsin Authors to its second fruition in the convention center,” Sebastian said.

Solomon called it “a big win for public art.” The controversy got national attention with coverage by The Bulwark.

“We are extremely grateful to the public for the support of this one-of-kind literary arts installation, which Milwaukee and Wisconsin are so lucky to have,” Solomon said. “This definitely would not be happening without the support of so many people wanting to preserve the art.”

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