Sculpture Milwaukee is excited to announce Dear Nature, a first-of-its-kind exhibition featuring installations from four Milwaukee institutions of higher education.

Curated by UW-Milwaukee Professors Whitney Moon and Jennifer Johung, Dear Nature will include sculptures created by students and faculty from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts (PSOA), and UW-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP.)

The works are a response to Sculpture Milwaukee's 2022-2023 exhibition Nature Doesn’t Know About Us, guest-curated by Ugo Rondinone. Similar to Rondinone’s exhibition, Dear Nature explores multiple dimensions of human intersections with nature, while celebrating the disparate elements of the Earth, self, and natural form.

Sculpture Milwaukee’s newest initiative reflects the implementation of its mission beyond its signature exhibition of monumental public sculpture along Wisconsin Avenue by impacting how the community engages with the broader built environment, both today and in the future.

Dear Nature offers Milwaukee’s future artists, architects, and engineers a platform to take the training within their respective fields to be applied to a professional artmaking process. Here, they consider the value of integrating other disciplines in the project and the future careers that will shape our urban environment.

Added Sculpture Milwaukee Executive Director Brian Schupper, “These are the artists, architects, and engineers who will create the built environment that marks Milwaukee’s creative and innovative expressions. Through Dear Nature, Sculpture Milwaukee is fostering future artists who can thrive within the building and urban planning sectors and engineers whose practicality and innovation will be imbued with a greater sense of creativity.”

Dear Nature opens on Gallery Night April 21, 2023 and will be on view at The Avenue, 275 W Wisconsin Ave, through October 2023. There is no admission fee to the exhibition and will be accessible to the public during Avenue operating hours.

“Through this experience, students learned crucial facets of professional practice that require careful planning, effective communication, and the logistics of showing art in a public setting,” said Jason Yi, Professor of Art at MIAD and a featured artist in Sculpture Milwaukee’s Legacy Collection. “Most important, they experienced the inner workings of professional collaboration and built a meaningful community outside the confines of MIAD.”

About Sculpture Milwaukee

Sculpture Milwaukee is an annual outdoor exhibition of public sculpture in downtown Milwaukee that serves as a catalyst for community engagement, economic development, and creative placemaking. Free, public, and outdoors, Sculpture Milwaukee honors the arts and celebrates the community with artwork that sparks inspiration, conversation, and captivates residents,tourists, students, and art lovers alike to experience sculpture in new and profound ways.

Sculpture Milwaukee is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization funded through private grants, donations, and sponsorships. Many of the artworks are available for acquisition. For more information, visit www.sculpturemilwaukee.com.