'Polka Time!' escalator at Baird Center will give last rides in August

Dick Blau's polkalator will give its last rides Aug. 18 at the Baird Center.

As part of its expansion and modernization project, the Wisconsin Center District is dismantling and deaccessioning Blau's "Polka Time!" installation of photographs and music that has been part of Milwaukee's convention center since 1998.

In that year, Blau and collaborators installed "Polka Time!" in the southwest corner of the center. Visitors getting on an escalator could push a button to hear a randomly selected polka tune from a large music library and look at 22 photos taken at polka dances on the wall as they rode.

Blau negotiated one final event before "Polka Time!" exits, in part so he could fully document it visually. People can ride the polkalator up and down from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 18. A closing ceremony saluting DJs Jerry Halkoski and Greg Drust will follow. Both DJs were involved at different times in curating music for the interactive exhibit.

"I am very sad — sad for Milwaukee and sad for polka music," Blau wrote in an email lamenting the removal of his installation.

"Polka Time!" was a part of $1.2 million in curated public art installed in 1998 inside and outside the convention center, known then as the Midwest Express Center. Blau is a professor emeritus of film, video, animation and new genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His varied photo, film and book projects have included several studies of polka culture.