But Is It Art? The Other Side of the Bronzie Debate

Seven Asian tourists stand in a tight group where Water Street meets Wells Street in downtown Milwaukee. They argue back and forth in hushed tones. One, who appears to be the leader of this group, points to the street signs and then to a map. Finally, exasperated, he walks up to a man waiting for the bus. The foreigner approaches the native, a nervous smile on his face and his brows knitted in concentration.

“Fonzie?” The man asks in thickly accented English. As an afterthought he gives a thumbs-up and says “Ayyyyyy.”

The Milwaukeean, at first surprised, grins and points to the Milwaukee River, a block west.

“Thank you.” Says the tourist as he returns to his group and relays the information. The group heads west. When they get to the river they turn, looking north and south along the river. Then they see it. Just south of Wells Street the bronze statue reflects the mid-day sun. The “Bronze Fonz” smiles and gives a perpetual “thumbs-up” to the tourists. They hurry across the street and cluster around the statue of the Milwaukee icon and begin snapping pictures. After a few minutes, a couple in black leather jackets emblazoned with Harley Davidson logos turns the corner. Patiently, they wait for their turn with the statue.

The controversy surrounding the statue had started to become not unlike a bad dream, fading into the collected consciousness. Then, in mid-April of this year, the Milwaukee Common Council decided by a 12-2 vote to approve the Janet Zweig art display along Wisconsin Avenue. That brought the controversy surrounding the “Bronze Fonz” back to the minds of those in the Milwaukee art scene.

The statue, known as the “Bronzie”, has become a polarizing issue amongst many in Milwaukee. While some believe it to be a light-hearted remembrance to that ambassador of coolness, others believe it represents the problems with the art scene in Milwaukee. Probably the most outspoken opponent of the “Bronzie” is Mike Brenner, owner of the former Hot Cakes art gallery.

Former art gallery as in gone. Brenner threatened to shut his gallery down if the Milwaukee Arts Board decided to go through with their plan to bring the Fonz in bronze statue form to Milwaukee. They did and he followed through with his threat. In July he closed the doors of Riverwest’s Hot Cakes gallery forever. Many accused him of being nothing more than the perpetrator of a huge publicity stunt. Others went even further.

“You ever link the Fonz and the Packers to Dahmer again and you’re going to end up like Dahmer.” Said one homophobic and misinformed caller who also called Brenner “gay-boy”. Brenner has posted some of the more “amusing” phone calls on a web site that also features artistic remixes by local artists supportive of Brenner’s cause.

But Brenner doesn’t see it that way.

“I did everything I could to make the community better.” He says as he sips a coffee outside of Riverwest’s Alterra headquarters. His gallery that was just a few blocks away was just a small part of the efforts he made on behalf of the Milwaukee underground art scene. In addition to the gallery, he served as the chair for the Milwaukee Artists Resource Network. MARN was created as a way for artists in the Milwaukee area to network and help each other out. Artists could use the group’s web site to advertise resources, both physical and intellectual, that they were willing to share and trade. Brenner worked with the group for eight years. Funding became harder and harder to come by and Brenner admits he was ill suited for the task of finding more.

“I’m an idea guy, not a do-the-books guy.”

Brenner relates how money continued to get tighter and tighter for him. Eventually he was forced to living in the back of his art gallery, sleeping on air mattresses. He went through seven, returning each one and exchanging it for a new one as they wore out. Things went from bad to worse for Brenner. A lot of the people that came to showings at his gallery would pound down free wine while complaining about its cheapness and criticize the hummus while they filled their pockets with it. Still, Brenner tried to stay open so that he could provide the public with art.

“After a while you don’t get anyone on Tuesdays so I decided to close on Tuesdays. Then people stopped showing up on Wednesdays.” Brenner says. He continued to try though. At one evening’s event when he was to show a film, only one person showed up. She and Brenner ended up having some beers and doing his dishes.

It would seem that Brenner’s decision to close his gallery was based more on financial reasons and less on artistic protest. It seems that way until the subject of Janet Zweig comes up. Zweig was a renowned artist that had created many works including a public display in Minneapolis. Brenner was serving on the Milwaukee Arts Board as the Chair of Public Art when it was decided that Zweig would be selected to create a public art display along Wisconsin Avenue. Besides Brenner, the Milwaukee Arts Board consisted of other notable figures in the Milwaukee artistic community: David Gordon, former Chief Executive Officer of Milwaukee Art Museum, Curtis Carter, founder and former Director of Marquette's Haggerty Museum of Art, Marcia Sehler, Milwaukee Riverwalk Art Curator, and Bob Greenstreet, Milwaukee’s City Architect.

The other half of the board consisted of members of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works, aldermen, and other more practical and less artistic public figures. Brenner related the story of one alderman that balked at the idea of spending money for the Wisconsin Avenue artwork.

“I wouldn’t spend fifty cents for the Mona Lisa and I’m not going to spend $220,000 for this.” He said in reference to the proposed Zweig display. DPW officials hastily added that the art would be too heavy and would end up in the basements of the buildings along Wisconsin Avenue. Brenner and his allies on the board were disappointed.

Their disappointment quickly turned to surprise and out rage when the other members of the board decided that there would be money to fund the completion of a project started by the cable network, TV Land. The network had built statues of celebrities in other cities: Mary Tyler Moore in Minneapolis and Bob Newhart in Chicago. The network decided to abandon the project before work could start on a statue of the Fonz in Milwaukee. The council decided to build the statue and place it downtown along the Riverwalk.

“They decided to build it right where Solomon Juneau built his trading post.” Brenner says, still appalled by the decision. Many of the bloggers that had been for the statue felt that it did not belong in downtown Milwaukee, somewhere never depicted in “Happy Days,” the sitcom that featured the Fonz.

“Leon’s has a wonderful classic 1950’s neon look, a visually appropriate backdrop for the bronze Fonz. Locate the sculpture there.” Said David Lenz on Mary Louise Schumacher’s JS-Online Art City blog. However this was before the “Bronzie’s” final destination was determined.

Brenner has since decided to turn his attention to brewing beer. He realizes that it may be another ten years before he sees any sort of profit. But he’s quick to add that a brewery is essentially a large warehouse space, the kind that has space for artist studios. As for the Milwaukee art scene, Brenner seems pragmatic but hopeful.

“It won’t be what I want it to be, but it’ll be what it needs to be.”

My Sedaris Review

The assignment seemed like it was going to be easy enough. It had two options. One was to write a review of a live event.

“I could do that.” I thought to myself.

I had been writing restaurant reviews for one of the school papers for nearly two years. It was an assignment that had been foisted on me by the arts and entertainment editor. I was nervous at first, but as it had turned out, it combined two of my passions: writing and eating.

I had gotten a lot of practice writing restaurant reviews and I felt I had gotten pretty good at them. But then, I had the necessary skill set to accurately critique a restaurant: years of cooking experience had made me able to spot the difference between an over-whelmed waitstaff and simply a bad one, and that same work experience had given me the knowledge to identify the difference between bad food and food that might not be good, but had potential.

However, the class assignment required that we went to a live performance. I hadn’t worked as a live performer, musical or otherwise. And unless it was some sort of cooking demonstration, my previous work experience was not going to help me.

Undaunted, I began to keep an eye out for an event to critique.

The combination of being tight-fisted and jaded by the current musical scene made it difficult to find something to see. On top of that, my wife and I had just bought our first house and it was a considerable amount of work. I was hesitant to spend a whole evening out having fun when there was work to be done.

Then it was announced.

My favorite living author, David Sedaris, was coming to town. The satirical humorist had been one of my favorites since a friend had told me some of my writing reminded him of Sedaris. I read one of Sedaris’ books and was hooked. His writing is hilarious and friends that were familiar with his work said it was even better when he read it aloud.

And he was coming to Riverside Theatre.

I asked a friend of mine who was as big of a fan as I was to go. She said she had to do some budget juggling, but she would be able to join me.
A few days later my wife asked me why I hadn’t bought tickets yet.
I told her that I was apprehensive that with all the other expenses, we couldn’t afford it.

“Well, you need to see something for your class, don’t you?” She said.

“Yeah.” I replied. “But the tickets are expensive.”

“We’ll be okay. Just go.”

So I bought the tickets and anxiously waited.

On the night of the show I went to catch the bus and arrived at the theatre an hour early. Eventually my friend Gretchen showed up and we went inside. Our seats were in the balcony so we went upstairs.

When we arrived at the first landing the usher looked at our tickets.

“These are upstairs.” He said, pointing at another set of stairs.
We climbed the stairs to the next landing where another usher was waiting.

“Yeah, you want to go up those stairs.” The second usher said, pointing at another set of stairs.

Finally, when we could go no further, we found our seats in the very last row of the balcony. When Sedaris came out he was a tiny speck, far below on the stage.
He read some of his works, told some stories and took questions from the audience.

I laughed so hard that I cried.


After the show, my friend waited in line with me for an hour so that I could get one of my books signed. I gave her implicit instructions to make sure I didn’t freeze up when it was our turn.

Then we were up.

I don’t remember exactly what I said but I know it came rushing out in a torrential gush of fawning adoration.

Mr. Sedaris took it all in stride. He asked me what I did and I told him that I was going to school to be a writer. I added that his writing was very inspirational to me. He was gracious and recommended some books for me to read. He signed my book, stating that he was looking forward to reading my book.

I floated out to the street on a cloud. My favorite author, besides being talented, was also a really nice guy.

As I thought about writing a review of the show, journalistic ethics reared its ugly head.

There was no way I could write a review of the show that was in any way unbiased.
Sedaris had could have come out onto the stage, belched loudly, and walked back off and I still would have thought it was great. Well, maybe not great, but certainly pretty good.

It just didn’t feel right to write a critique that was little more than fan-worship.



Fortunately, the assignment’s second option was to write a column.