It’s the town’s most neglected work of art. Hidden somewhere in the Wisconsin Center District – we’re betting in the bowels of the U.S. Cellular Arena – is the most famous basketball floor no one is playing on.
In 1977, internationally known pop artist Robert Indiana turned the floor of the MECCA Arena, as it was then called, into a work of art. Like his iconic “LOVE” designs, which adorn downtown streetscapes and postage stamps, the arena imagery was bold and geometric: a glowing gold and yellow background with contrasting splashes of deep blue and red; two towering, subtly created M’s at opposite ends of the floor; and an electric blue MECCA logo framing the center circle.
Fans and players loved it, and the colorful floor (a steal at $27,500, or roughly $94,000 today) won national attention, boosting Milwaukee’s cultural profile.
But when the Milwaukee Bucks moved into the Bradley Center in 1988, they left their hallowed hardwood behind. After the Wisconsin Center District purchased a new arena floor in 1996, Indiana’s was put into storage.
Since then, the floor has seemed cursed. In 1999, gallery owner Michael Lord was supposed to sell it through Sotheby’s for $500,000 (it allegedly drew interest from an associate of the Sultan of Brunei). But no sale ever happened and Lord later went to jail on an unrelated charge of felony theft. Then in 2001, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and its president, Terrence Coffman, agreed to buy the floor for $250,000. The floor was stored there for four years, only to see MIAD run into financial woes and Coffman resign. Not one dollar changed hands.
Today, the floor is back at the Wisconsin Center District, but its president Richard Geyer refuses to specify the exact location for “security reasons,” perhaps worrying some thief will lift it – all 19 tons and 240 sections.
Mike Getz, the MIAD building manager who oversaw the floor’s storage during its heady, unpaid-for years at that institution, offers this suggestion: Given the proposed Blue Shirtsculpture never made it to the Mitchell International Airport parking structure, how about hanging Indiana’s art in pieces on the building? Sounds crazy, but it is a work of art and a piece of city history. Better displayed somewhere than simply collecting dust in a secret location.
