Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Artist	Magdalena Abakanowicz
Year	2001 (2001)
Dimensions	(100–160 cm in × 190–260 cm in × 120–135 cm in)
Location	East Kilbourn Ave. and North Cass St., Milwaukee
Coordinates	43°2′34.398″N 87°54′6.103″W / 43.04288833°N 87.90169528°W / 43.04288833; -87.90169528Coordinates: 43°2′34.398″N 87°54′6.103″W / 43.04288833°N 87.90169528°W / 43.04288833; -87.90169528

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:

Magdalena Abakanowicz

Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

2001.

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

Main article: Magdalena Abakanowicz

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]

References

↑ "Picturing Milwaukee's Neighborhoods", University of Wisconsin, October 23, 2008
↑ Woman’s Club Of Wisconsin, Woman's Club website.
1 2

Milwaukee Public Art

Downtown	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 Gertie Gets Her Ducks in a Row Mother Teresa Monument Jacques Marquette You Rise Above the World The Last Alarm

North Side	Celebrating the Arts Christian Wahl Elk On Watch Pattern Lapham Memorial Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. here, mothers are... 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

East Side	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

South Side	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 General Thaddeus Kosciuszko 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

West Side	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

Lynden Sculpture Garden	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 Poland Axeltree Orbits Ritual II Hara Olympus The Lovers 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

Mobile Projects	Overpass Light Brigade

Overview	List of public art in Milwaukee

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