Sculpture Milwaukee is teaming with Company Brewing to launch a "companion" beer for the open-air gallery's upcoming eighth season.
Sculpture Milwaukee Monumental IPA will be tapped on Saturday, April 6 at the Riverwest Brewery, 735 E. Center St. Select bars and restaurants, including Bridgewater and Classic Slice, will begin carrying the beer this month.
The West Coast IPA is the latest releae in an ongoing collaboration between Company and Beer Endowment, begun about 10 years ago by Sculpture Milwaukee's Executive Director and current guest curator, artist John Riepenhoff.
The beers, which include Fred Smith Lager, Poor Farm Pils and others, are meant to help support and promote artist-run organizations.
“There’s an explicit social history of humans gathering to converse over libations," says Riepenhoff. "In Milwaukee, we obviously have our own beer history and collaborative social spirit.
"With Monumental IPA, we’re adding to the story by using the beer as a way to welcome people into the conversations Sculpture Milwaukee has already started.”
Monumental IPA will be packaged in 16-ounce cans with label art by Milwaukee ex-pat Nat Pyper. The art, along with related Pyper creations, will be part of Sculpture Milwaukee's "Actual Fractals, Act II" exhibition, which opens June 3.
Like its predecessor, "Actual Fractals, Act I" in 2023, this one is curated by Riepenhoff, and launches with a week of artist talks, tours and other events.
“With elements of design, in Nat Pypers’s case, or performance, in the case of works of social choreography we’ve commissioned from Kim Miller, a local performance and visual artist, we’ll be activating discussions around other monumental physical pieces in the show,” says Riepenhoff.
“As we continue to gear up and build on Sculpture Milwaukee’s success, we’re not only finding more ways to collaborate and co-invest to support more artists, but also to spark new conversations about public art that are as important internationally as they are to Milwaukeeans who might enjoy the wonder and surprise of discovering, say, an organic bronze evoking fruits and plants and fertility by the Brazilian artist Erika Verzutti tucked into a pocket park they pass every day.”
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.
