Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil
Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil is a public artwork by Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz. It is located on the Kilbourn Avenue boulevard in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The 2001 aluminum sculpture consists six pieces organized in columns. The column heights are 4–6 meters, and the dimensions of the birds are: height 100–160 cm, width 190–260 cm, length 120–135 cm.
Description
Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil is an aluminum sculpture located near E Kilbourn Ave & N Cass St, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202. The sculpture faces toward Lake Michigan. It is also across from the Woman's Club of Wisconsin. It contains six separate pieces, each piece depicting a bird. Three of the birds have two wings and the other three birds have four wings. All of the bird's wings are at different angles. The six birds are arranged to mimic the ground they are set up on. Although the sculpture represents birds they are not depicted in full detail. Like many of Abakanowicz's sculptures Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil lack heads. When asked about her work Abakanowicz states, "perhaps the experience of the crowd, waiting passively in line, but ready to trample, destroy or afore on command like a headless creature, became the core of my analysis." Along with the bird's lack of heads their surface is that of an organic texture. This is juxtaposed with their aluminum material.
There is a plaque in the lawn where the public work is located. It reads:
Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Commissioned by members of the Woman's Club of Wisconsin on the occasion of its 125th anniversary. Celebrating Milwaukee's tradition of community service The artist wishes to acknowledge the special assistance of Artur Starewicz, Warsaw Poland
Location history
Yankee Hill is one of the oldest neighborhoods on Milwaukee's East Side.[1] It was once a wealthy neighborhood and to this day still retains its wealth.
Acquisition
In order to honor the Woman's Club of Wisconsin[2] on their 125th anniversary Abakanowicz was commissioned to make a public artwork for Milwaukee. The piece was meant to honor the club, as well as to pay respect to the club's members and their dedicated years of volunteer work.
Artist
Quotes by Abakanowicz
"I'm frightened by crowds of people, birds or even insects swarming in great masses. People in an airport, people on a metro or on a tram, can seem threatening, horrible, a brainless entity. Today we are pushed by quantity in general. I create these crowds of figures as a warning: they're saying we are too many."[3]
"I feel overawed by quantity where counting no longer makes sense. By unrepeatability within such a quantity. By creatures of nature gathered in herds, droves, species, in which each individual, while subservient to the mass, retains some distinguishing features. A crowd of people, birds, insects, or leaves is a mysterious assemblage of variants of certain prototype. A riddle of nature's abhorrence of exact repetition or inability to produce it. Just as the human hand cannot repeat its own gesture, I invoke this disturbing law, switching my own immobile herds into that rhythm."[3]
See also
- Agora (sculpture)
- "Female Artist Month – Magdalena Abakanowicz", Art Factory Białystok
References
- v
- t
- e
- The Victorious Charge
- Family
- The Calling
- Wisconsin Workers Memorial
- Wind Leaves
- Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil
- The Great Double
- Woodland Indian and Whistling Swans
- Solomon Juneau
- Leif, the Discoverer
- Letter Carriers' Monument
- Argo
- Bronze Fonz
- Walkways Through the Wall
- Abraham Lincoln
- George Washington
- Referee
- Immigrant Mother
- King Gambrinus
- RiverSculpture!
- Gertie the Duck
- General Douglas MacArthur
- The Spirit of Polonia
- World War I Memorial Flagpole
- Pedestrian Drama
- Midsummer Carnival Shaft
- Acqua Grylli
- Laureate
- Diana
- Trigon
- Pere Jacques Marquette
- Spanish–American War Soldier
- Ruins X
- Ex Stasis
- City Yard
- Mahatma Gandhi Memorial
- Peter John
- A Beam of Sun to Shake the Sky
- Rainbow Machine
- Topiary Lucere
- Dancing Through Life
- Mother Teresa Monument
- Jacques Marquette
- You Rise Above the World
- The Last Alarm
- John Plankinton
- Celebrating the Arts
- Christian Wahl
- Elk
- On Watch
- Pattern
- Lapham Memorial
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- Music
- Fishing
- Spirit of the Firefighter
- Dauntless Guardian
- Buildings 1992
- Gear 23
- All in the Air at Once
- First Flight
- Sea of the Ear
- Kindred Ties
- Cleopatra's Wedge
- Float
- Polyphony
- Boy with Goose
- Eight Stone Lions
- Three Bronze Discs
- Holocaust Memorial
- Happy-Go-Luckies of Nature and Technology
- Blue Dress Park
- Sentinels
- Hermes
- Milwaukee
- Eclipse
- 'X' Intertwining
- Compass
- Erastus B. Wolcott
- Sharing the Load
- Robert Burns
- Near Here
- Compass
- Walk Like a River
- Spillover II
- Tip
- Jantar-Mantar
- Cass Street Park
- Brady Street Beasts
- Connect
- Fairies Candles
- Menomonee
- Count Casimir Pulaski
- Spirit of Commerce
- Bay View Series
- A Place to Sit
- Stratiformis
- The Hill Climber
- Deflected Jets
- Angel in a Cage
- R. D. Whitehead Monument
- Memorial for Belle Austin Jacobs
- T. A. Chapman Memorial
- Nature Belle
- Oops, Missed
- Space Game
- Engine Company No. 10
- William A. Starke Memorial
- Steel Reborn
- Red Flower Rising
- Equestrian statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko
- Patrick Cudahy Memorial
- SOARING
- Two Opposites Reaching Up Toward the Peak of Progress
- Edge Elements
- Ribbons VI
- Bridge
- Stone Bracelet
- Untitled
- Quartet
- Tending the Fire
- Bird and Fish
- The Sower
- The Reaper
- Giving Gifts
- Watertower
- Henry Bergh
- Goethe–Schiller Monument
- Chrysalis
- The Ideal Scout
- Uptown Triangles
- Tree of Life
- Magic Grove
- Steuben Monument
- Kneeling Camels
- Teamwork
- Aaron Monument
- Yount Monument
- Selig Monument
- Uecker Monument
- Fire and Water
- Vliet Street Commons
- Miller Valley Veterans Monument
- Children of the West End
- Sinai
- Wandering Rocks
- Sea Form (Atlantic)
- Sky Fence
- Floating Sculpture No. 3
- Mo, Ni, Que
- Trio
- Two-Piece Reclining Figure No. 9
- Way Four
- Compound Junior
- Salem No. 7
- Bremen Town Musicians
- Ancestor
- Queen of Sheba
- Rhythm in Space
- Peristyle, Three Lines
- Orizzontale
- Embrace
- Ursa Major
- Three Graces
- Large Torso, Arch
- Double Up
- Upstart
- The Lovers (di Suvero)
- Poland
- Axeltree
- Orbits
- Ritual II
- Hara
- Olympus
- The Lovers (Daen)
- Tensione No. 2
- The Source
- Rainbow
- Unfolding
- Vegetative Sculpture I
- Round About
- Lodgepole
- Twist for Max
- Bench-Stone
- Windfall
- Knife Tree
- Conversations with Magic Stones, Figure Three
- Conversations with Magic Stones (Magic Stone Three)
- Kumo
- Untitled
- Arch
- Epicenter
- Epicenter II
- III Columns
- Flight
- Pin Oak I