British artist Thomas J. Price’s “Within the Folds (Dialogue 1)” (2020) is back Downtown, where it was installed on Wednesday at Vel R. Phillips Plaza, which opened a year ago this month.
The work – which first appeared here in front of the US Bank Center, 777 E. Wisconsin Ave., during Sculpture Milwaukee 2020 – is a nine-foot figural sculpture that depicts a casually dressed Black man.
The sculpture was purchased by an anonymous donor for America’s Black Holocaust Museum in 2021. It will be installed in the plaza only temporarily.
“The sculpture will be at Vel R. Phillips Plaza for approximately 12 months,” said Sculpture Milwaukee Director of Marketing & Community Engagement Ellen Kullerstran.
“(ABHM’s) Brad Pruitt and (Sculpture Milwaukee’s) John Riepenhoff are currently working on an initiative together to travel the sculpture to multiple locations before it returns to Milwaukee and is installed at its final destination at America's Black Holocaust Museum.”
In 2026 a permanent memorial to Phillips being created by artist Karyn Olivier will be installed.
The young man depicted in “Within the Folds (Dialogue 1)” stands proud and tall, gazing off into the distance. His clothing is draped in a way that reminds us of the classical sages represented in ancient sculptures.
It could also, in this siting, conjure the judicial robes of Wisconsin’s first African American judge in Wisconsin and the first African American elected to statewide office, Vel Phillips.
“My mother’s name has been so connected with young Black girls, and rightly so. But I am overjoyed that a sculpture of a young Black man will stand at the plaza,” said Phillips’ son, attorney Michael Phillips.
“It’s an opportunity to offer young Black men, who face significant difficulties in this country, the sustenance borne of my mother’s mission to help people, to bathe them in the entire Wisconsin ethos that flows from her history and her legacy.”
Price, a London native, creates his works digitally and then assembles pieces into a complete work. He said he bases his work on people he observes in life.
“My figures are fictional people trying to communicate real moments – we recognize ourselves in the way they’re standing, before we even get to race or gender,” he has told The New York Times.
“They’re a celebration of the everyday.”
The work was installed thanks to a partnership between the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District No. 21, America’s Black Holocaust Museum and Sculpture Milwaukee.
“The work of Thomas J. Price has been celebrated in Milwaukee, and it is an honor to have ‘Within the Folds’ back on display at Vel R. Phillips Plaza,” said Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson.
“It is a powerful work, a monument to dignity and strength. Within the Folds displays humanity in a very accessible way. City government is happy it can assist in sharing the sculpture at such a prominent location.”
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. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
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 been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
