Rainbow Summer: HIGHLIGHT Featuring Evanescent Comes to Marcus Performing Arts Center This Summer

Downtown Milwaukee will welcome a new immersive public art installation to the Marcus Performing Arts Center Outdoor Grounds in July 2023 with the return of Rainbow Summer: HIGHLIGHT featuring Evanescent. Marcus Performing Arts Center (MPAC) and Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21 are partnering to bring the internationally touring installation "Evanescent" by Atelier Sisu to the MPAC Outdoor Grounds for one week only, July 18 - 22, along with five nights of free public performances.

Capitalizing on the success of "Lightfield" by HYBYCOZO, presented by Johnson Financial Group, that transformed Cathedral Square Park into an immersive public art installation, "Evanescent" by Atelier Sisu will feature larger-than-life "art-chitecture" (the intersection of art and architecture).

As part of Rainbow Summer: HIGHLIGHT featuring Evanescent, each night will feature a free public performance with live music from local and regional artists, vendor markets, food trucks, activities, and more. Performances are scheduled to begin at 7:00pm nightly, with a special Family Night planned for Saturday, July 22 that will begin at 6:00pm. Additional details on artists performing at Rainbow Summer: HIGHLIGHT featuring Evanescent will be released in the coming weeks.

"We are elated to expand on our partnership with Milwaukee Downtown to bring this world-renowned installation to our community alongside a diverse selection of musical artists for Rainbow Summer: HIGHLIGHT featuring Evanescent," said Jared Duymovic, MPAC Vice President of Programming & Engagement. "This is the first large-scale public activation of our newly renovated outdoor space, and we look forward to welcoming everyone to enjoy and experience this exciting summer event."

As part of Milwaukee Downtown's public art initiatives, this inflatable, large-scale art display will feature three sets of four bubbles each, which will have a total footprint of over 1,400 square yards - encompassing the majority of the lawn on the MPAC Outdoor Grounds. The massive installation invites playful, fun interaction, promising to be the most Instagrammable moment of the summer in Milwaukee. Led by Peruvian sculptor and industrial designer Renzo B. Larriviere and spatial architect and artist Zara Pasfield, Atelier Sisu is an award-winning Sydney-based art practice, aiming to provide a unique spatial experience for its visitors.

"'Evanescent' by Atelier Sisu will be the premier public art installation this summer in downtown Milwaukee, and undoubtedly a highlight for everyone's Instagram feed," said Beth Weirick, CEO of Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21. "We're proud to partner with the Marcus Performing Arts Center to bring even more public programming to downtown's communal spaces this summer."

Evanescent is an adjective, meaning the quality of being fleeting or vanishing quickly; impermanence.

Evanescent is an immersive, light and sound temporary environment that aims to capture the concept of ephemerality and transience in a visual form: the bubble. The artwork was inspired during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world stopped and everything we took for granted started to disappear. Atelier Sisu endeavored to communicate this feeling of transient beauty, and the need to live in the moment through the idea of the bubble.

By day, Evanescent is made from a color-reflecting dichroic film that reacts to the changing light of the sun as it moves across the sky, causing a rainbow of reflection across the ground and a unique picture from every angle. This art-chitecture connects audiences with their environment and is designed to be truly inclusive. By emulating the ethereal quality and magic of bubbles, Atelier Sisu's Evanescent appeals to our universal playfulness and childlike wonder, the work encourages the audience to consider the world around them as a space of transience and fragility, like that of a bubble.

To learn more about Rainbow Summer: HIGHLIGHT featuring Evanescent, visit https://www.marcuscenter.org/get-tickets/rainbow-summer/.

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