Thanks to a partnership with the Black Box Fund, Sculpture Milwaukee will expand to include the Third Ward in 2020 when the next set of sculptures are installed in Downtown Milwaukee in May.
Founded in 2019 Black Box Fund aims to support public art, music and performance. It also sponsors the free weekly Jazz at Noon series at the Broadway Theatre Center.
"We are thrilled for the opportunity to partner with Sculpture Milwaukee," said Black Box VP Doug McDonald.
"Our goal, to support public art that inspires and educates, meshes perfectly with Sculpture Milwaukee’s world class programing. We’re very excited to see what works will be chosen for the Historic Third Ward extension to Sculpture Milwaukee."
The fourth annual Sculpture Milwaukee is set to be the biggest ever, which aligns perfectly with the DNC bringing so many new visitors to the city this summer.
"Sculpture Milwaukee is about utilizing public art as a catalyst for energizing Wisconsin Avenue’s downtown corridor, contributing to its reemergence as a community and economic hub," said Sculpture Milwaukee Executive Director Brian Schupper.
"Extending to the Historic Third Ward – an adjacent neighborhood that has an overlapping commitment to a creative engagement of our community – is a natural next step in our growth."
As always, the sculptures will remain in place through mid-October, though if history is any judge, at least one work – maybe more – will remain in the city much longer than that. A number of previous works have been purchased and kept in the city.
"As Milwaukee's arts district, we are thrilled to have Sculpture Milwaukee include the Historic Third Ward neighborhood in this year's event – especially with all eyes on Milwaukee for the Democratic National Convention," said Jim Plaisted, executive director of the Historic Third Ward Association.
"The neighborhood is the perfect complement to the overall mission of both Black Box Fund and Sculpture Milwaukee, and we are very appreciative of their efforts to enhance our visitor experience this summer."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
