Credit: Journal Sentinel files

Mary Louise Schumacher Art City An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue. SHARE Poll 'The Calling': Love it, hate it, move on? Love it. Hate it. Let's just move on already. vote View Results Love it.: 25% Hate it.: 36% Let's just move on already.: 39% Total Responses: 1038

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Special note from Mary Louise: Whenever there is a discussion about public art in Milwaukee, it often begins and ends with bellyaching over Mark di Suvero's "The Calling." Like passing "GO" and collecting $200, it is the most predictable part of the cycle, a true blue Milwaukee pastime right up there with remarking on the weather or one of our teams. When artist, writer and curator Shane McAdams, a transplant to our area from the heart of the art world, the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, told me about his own conflicting points of view about the piece, I asked him to elaborate. Here is a point of view from a relative newcomer.

Outdoor public sculpture has a history of inspiring a wider degree of controversy than more portable work designated to live out its days within the sanctuary of an art institution. The reasons for this are myriad: public sculpture is by its very nature highly visible; it often comes with a significant and known price tag; its role is often ambiguous; and the constraints of site specificity have tended to privilege a pre-ordained selection of art world regulars, traditionally male, macho and white.

The greatest case study for this is Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc," which was removed from the plaza in front of Jacob Javits Federal Building in Manhattan in the late 80's. But there are countless less profiled examples that are equally divisive within their respective communities.

Such a controversy looms in the air around Milwaukee's own Mark di Suvero sculpture titled "The Calling." The work, as many may know, sits prominently at the end of E. Wisconsin Ave. in O'Donnell Park, in the shadow of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

I don't know if I'm capable of feeling actual hatred toward a physical object, but I feel something close to it regarding the divisiveness generated by this piece.

That assemblage of orange I-beams seems to have become a symbol and often a testing ground for competing ideologies in Milwaukee; fueled by the radioactive questions: "What are We getting?" and "What are Our costs?"

To oversimplify, the competitors in this grudge match are: 1. those who feel art is sacred and above petty, practical squabbles; and those who don't identify with art as a culture and tend to think any price tag is too much. In my short time in Milwaukee I have heard the entire range of arguments from "Mark di Suvero is a legend, what kind of Philistine would object to such modern minimal mastery?" to "I have access to I-beams and paint, why don't they hire me?"

Neither position is a good place to start a healthy conversation about public art.

There are things that I strongly dislike about this work of public sculpture, namely what I'd see as an abiding sense — or maybe an obligation — to that clique of mostly macho, male artists when anyone is outfitting a corporate plaza or some kind of a public space. I think the powers that be limit themselves greatly by looking to the same checklists of usual suspects.

I am a vigilant skeptic about the machinery that burps out public projects, and I would like to see more diversity and opportunity afforded to developing artists just for the sake of seeing a greater array of things in public.

With that said, a few years ago, I was in upstate New York at Storm King, which is a very large sculpture park with a few Di Suveros in an idyllic landscape. I couldn't help but think about the piece in Milwaukee and how it rhymes with and integrates into the urban landscape and the angles of the streets.

Consider for a moment that your city is art. Forget ideology: the skyline is comprised of architecture, the avenues are conceived by urban planners whose lives are dedicated to fostering symbiotic relationships between all travelers, and the beaches, parks and plazas in the background of your family photos are artfully designed in the interest of the greater good. The "greater good" being everything from emotional resonance to egress.

And when anything is public it comes with the possibility of it being compromised by grift, graft, glad-handing, and even the gravity that names like Mark di Suvero's have on those in his world. But, those cases shouldn't poison the well, they should only make us cautious in our collective search for better experiences with public space and the art and architecture within it.

I may be a skeptic, but I am also a believer that well-planned public projects can be transformative. There is always a middle ground. And because there is, context is crucial.

Looking down Wisconsin Avenue, looking at Mark di Suvero's "The Calling" for the first time, I thought, "Wow, that's Mark di Suvero at his very best."

Its scale; Its balance; Its riff on the surrounding architecture; Its echo of the axis of the street. All extraordinary. Heading east and toward it, the yellow lane dividers continue right up the work's spine, through the mast on Calatrava's own public sculpture (ahem), and into the sky. Exquisite.

How lucky Milwaukee is to have such a good example. It is even luckier to have an example of how successful public art can be if executed correctly.

It would do well to take "The Calling" as a calling to bail on entrenched ideologies and make sure its spaces are designed and populated with the sensitivity its public deserves.

Shane McAdams is an artist who splits his time between Brooklyn and Cedarburg. He has just curated a show at the Thelma in Fond du Lac called "45 North."