Focus on Family (Blumenfeld) and explain the Information.
Family is located on the Henry Reuss Federal Plaza and tied to the building it sits in front of. The building was the brainchild of US House member Henry S. Reuss. He believed it would encourage the development of downtown Milwaukee, as well as group thirty federal agencies under one roof. When Reuss made the plans for the new building public, he announced that there would be no federal money given for artwork, explaining that an anonymous donor had offered to donate an outdoor sculpture. Blumenfeld was thus privately commissioned to create Family in the late 1970s. She selected 68 tons of Norwegian blue granite, which she had shipped to Carrara, Italy. Blumenfeld and four assistants proceeded to chisel the five forms. "Family is the first of several of Blumenfeld's multi-component outdoor sculptures. Although her works are abstract, the forms are organic and are intended to symbolize human figures and their relationships. Like members of a family, each of the humanoid figures relates strongly to the others, but retains its separate identity." As the viewer moves the parts, the sculpture changes; the same way that relationships are always changing. Blumenfeld refers to this evolving relationship stating, "One is sometimes stronger, one is weaker. Looking at a family you see the different values placed on each member at different times. I'm trying to show the dynamic tension in a relationship."
Henry S. Reuss Carrara granite Milwaukee