It?s been a long time since a boxer towered over the local landscape. Hurrah for Emil Kayer, whoever he was?
Of the wide range of emotions triggered by boxing, empathy (the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another) doesn?t exactly leap to mind.
But some Milwaukee artists are using the image of a boxer as ?a symbol of empathy that we as artists would like to see come back to civic discourse and human consciousness.?
A 23-foot-high mural of a long-ago local amateur fighter now adorns the side of the RedLine Building, an artists? enclave on the city?s north side. Emil Kayer fought almost a century ago, and his photo in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Library Digital Archives inspired three artists to make him a symbol of what?s lacking in modern society.
Explained one of them: ?In boxing, a competitor actually scores points by the damage that they inflict upon the body of their opponent. So, when we saw this photo plate of Emil Kayer in two poses next to each other, it almost seemed as if he was two people, fighting each other.
?We thought?Whoa, what if a boxer inflicted that damage on their own body, or at least could fully understand the impact of each blow! That?s empathy, right??
I got hit too hard in the 1967 Milwaukee Golden Gloves tournament to quite follow that, but it?s nice to see boxing used to send a positive message into the community for a change. For their high-minded purposes it might have been better to put up a photo of Richie Mitchell, the century-ago Milwaukee lightweight contender so full of empathy that The Ring magazine?s story about his death in 1949 was headlined, ?He was too nice.?
In any case, it?s been a long time since a boxer towered over the local landscape. Hurrah for Emil Kayer, whoever he was.
