Location: 139 East Kilbourn Ave, Milwaukee

5:30: Doors open, grab your seat and drink

6:00: Talk Begins

TICKETS HERE

Art and activism have a long relationship, from Mexican Muralists to Picasso’s Guernica to art that addressed the AIDS pandemic. For decades, Sculpture Milwaukee featured artist Sam Durant has created photographs, installations, sculpture and lightboxes that consider the political ramifications of the past and their impact on our lives today. His text-based public artwork on Wisconsin Avenue connects to regional and national artists who employ text in their art and activism, including the Overpass Light Brigade, Voces de los Artistas, Michelle Angela Ortiz, and Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds. Nicolas Lampert will explore these fascinating junctures of art and activism.

Nicolas Lampert is a Milwaukee-based interdisciplinary artist and author whose work focuses on themes of social justice and ecology. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Library of Congress, and over fifty-five archives and special collections across the US and Canada. Collectively, he works with four groups: the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative - a worker-owned printmaking cooperative of thirty artists in North America that formed in 2007; ReciproCity – a Milwaukee-based collective established in 2012 that works at the intersection of art, architecture, urban sustainability, and a socially-just version of community re-development; Art Build Workers - a collective of artists who organize art builds for teacher unions and other movements, and Voces de los Artistas, an art-affinity group established in 2016 that works in collaboration with Voces de la Frontera - an immigrant rights organization based in Wisconsin. His first book A People’s Art History of the United States: 250 Years of Activist Art and Artists Working in Social Justice Movements was published by The New Press in 2013 and is part of the People’s History Series edited by Howard Zinn. Lampert is a full-time faculty member (academic staff appointment) in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a joint appointment in Printmaking and Writing and Critical Thinking

Sculpture Talks is a series of dynamic discussions by some of the region’s art and cultural leaders. Speakers will explore contemporary trends and historical notes in relation to the artworks in Sculpture Milwaukee 2019. Come for the talk, stay for a drink (First one’s on us!), and deepen your understanding and appreciation of contemporary public art.

Sponsored by Guardian Fine Art Services and organized by Debra Brehmer of Portrait Society Gallery.