Since we were out that way---sort of---coming back from Lone Elk Park---I suggested we go to Laumeier Sculpture Park. This is another place I've only been to a few times, but now that we're "tourists" in St. Louis, there's a lot of places to go see again! This was Ken's first time here. I'll say he wasn't impressed. It is definately a different kind of park!!! But it was a pretty afternoon and a nice place to take a stroll.
105-acre open-air museum and sculpture park located near St. Louis and is maintained by the St. Louis Parks and Recreation Center. It houses over 60 outdoor sculptures and features a 1.4-mile walking trail, and educational programs.
One of our first encounters---
Eye, 2007
fiberglass, resin, oil paint, steel
452 inches circumference
reinforced steel, concrete, paint
108 x 67 x 54 inches
" Jene Highstein's Ada’s Will, 1990, has the somewhat menacing first-impression look of, perhaps, a projectile. Then, it is seen to be not airfoil-sleek, not quite symmetrical, not a representation of anything nor yet an abstraction. Its concrete is troweled with irregular thickness onto a steel armature—a darkly enigmatic presence with fleeting associations."
Abstract Variation Lozenger No. 3, 1980
stainless steel
110 x 114 x 98 inches
"Ernest Trova's Abstract Variation series reflects his interest in the precarious balance of chaos and order. The artworks in this series vary in scale, from modest to monumental, and were made of either COR-TEN or painted steel. Abstract Variation Lozenger No. 3, 1980, made of stainless steel, illustrates the effect of elements resting against one another as it implies immanent collapse."
Hortus Obscurus (The Dark Garden), 1997
plants, limestone benches, iron border
variable height x 216 x 142 inches
" Frances Whitehead is an amateur botanist and natural scientist, turning plants and the practices of topiary into art. Hortus Obscurus (The Dark Garden), 1997, builds associations with evil, the sinister and the funereal using seduction as a didactic tool. Hidden in a nook of the Museum Lawn, this work is intended to be a surprising display—a living garden with an atypical view of nature that is most often associated with “greenness” rather than “darkness.”
This installation is an encyclopedic collection of the darkest varieties of many well-known and other lesser-known plant varieties. Whitehead has designed the antithesis of a typical garden by selecting trees and plants with black, purple and brown flowers and foliage, with a contrived and mannered staging. An ecological statement calling for a greater awareness of the botanical world, this provocative garden installation is complete with a set of stone benches, inviting the visitor to contemplate the future of our natural world."
patinated bronze and gold leaf on steel
89 x 64 x 33 inches
Loan courtesy Arman
" Arman is known for his use of found objects, cast in bronze and then assembled in new ways. His accumulations suggest that art is made from the everyday stuff of life, thereby confusing the terms of high versus low. Suturing together propeller blades and a voluptuous bronze female figure, Arman’s La Libellule, 1996, is simultaneously a dragonfly, wood nymph and science experiment gone awry. Arman deconstructs the figure to expose its interior and exterior forms, La Libellule is an erotic sculptural collage that both amuses and horrifies."
eighteen salvaged steel oil tanks
780 x 1224 x 1200 inches
"Composed on-site in this open clearing in 1980, The Way has long stood as an acting symbol for the Park, projecting in all directions like the guns of a giant battleship. This monumental work dominates the field; its scale is, in part, meant to represent the awe-inspiring impact of classical Greek temples and mammoth Gothic-style cathedrals. The massive, crumpled cylinders are welded together and placed to resemble a post and lintel architectural system. With numerous points of tension, this sacred pile of weighted geometry possesses shrine-like properties with humorous undertones, familiar to a failed game of Jenga. Discovered along the northeast coast, the eighteen salvaged steel oil tanks are a towering gateway built in the modernist spirit. Cadmium red was chosen for its symbolic qualities, representing beauty in Russian culture, and as a luminous, abstract mixture that unifies all of the constructed parts of the artwork. Liberman’s carefully placed industrial columns offer layered symbolism that combines site with compositional elegance and bold enthusiasm of form."
fabricated steel
96 x 192 x 84 inches
With Knots, Cosimo Cavallaro deftly re-spins hardcore industrial material as flimsy pool noodles. The entwined bundle of steel tubes exemplifies his interest in the multi-layered concept of birth, using the form of a giant umbilical cord to symbolize the entanglement of human emotions and to express a sense of confusion at our inability, at times, to resolve feelings or articulate thoughts. Cavallaro’s sculptural, linear gesture illustrates his ongoing interest in man’s struggle between need and desire, security and uncertainty."
annealed hammered aluminum, stainless steel aluminum, dead walnut tree
204 x 96 x 84 inches (126 inch circumference)
"
Robert Lobe has described his sculptures as “involving an interrupted, sacrificed Nature that is not just borrowed, but violated.” His works are created in nature as sculptural echoes of natural form, usually rocks or trees. The signature process Lobe uses is an adaptation of repoussé, an ancient technique in which metal is hammered to create designs or shapes. The fusion of natural beauty and metal handiwork show the wildly disorganized aspect of nature, rather than the tranquil one presented in a park setting.
Lobe’s The Palm at the End of the Parking Lot, 1995, is a battered, aluminum-encased walnut trunk that exemplifies his focus on the violence of "nature and culture." The aura of the sculpture obliterates the formal distinction between nature and technology by imposing a distressed layer of armor plate around the tree’s old contours. The punch marks left by the pneumatic hammer that formed the aluminum become a matrix of penny-size scars through which Lobe has preserved and mimicked the tree’s original, textural surface. Are technological interventions strong enough to reverse the ravages technology has already visited upon the landscape? Lobe’s answer to this question remains enigmatic."
natural concrete, gravel, reinforced rods, sod, earth
"Vito Acconci’s dislocations of familiar things into unlikely contexts jolts the viewer from passive looking into a more questioning state of mind. Face of the Earth #3 rejects the pedestal tradition by putting a jack-o-lantern face into the earth. Instead of looking up at it, the viewer steps down into its eyes, nose and mouth and can sit in the skull-like cavities. It proposes that a bland, easy-to-understand, ingratiating face is what the public says it wants in public art."
Four Shades, 1994
elm, sycamore, pine and basswood trees, Kentucky bluegrass sod and topsoil
840 x 840 inches, variable height
"
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Four Shades, 1994, is a way of seeing nature through art. Using elm, sycamore, pine and basswood trees planted on a circular mound, this earthwork is a visual translation of a quote from the classical Roman poet Virgil, a literal rendition of the “four shades” described in his poem Georgic IV, written in 29 B.C.E. This “arrangement” provides a subtle and mysterious haven for rest and contemplation within the Park grounds that will transform over time by way of the changing seasons and the growth and maturation of the trees.
Taking what he calls the classical approach to improving nature through human manipulation, this thoughtfully constructed garden also demonstrates Finlay’s interest in recreating the delicate distinction between the designed and the wild. This earthwork stems from the British tradition of the poet’s garden and illustrates the artist’s preoccupation with the relationship between culture and nature, using literature by way of sculpture."
55 steel marine buoys
65 x 65 x 3600 inches
"
Donald Lipski’s work explores how context transforms the meaning of ready-made objects through a whimsical combination of materials and site. Lipski’s approach to art is mainly conceptual; he seeks to express ideas not only through the flaked rust of his chosen material, but also to invite speculation by way of the associations that viewers might make in response to them. Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall!, 1994, is a 300-foot long sculpture in which Minimalism’s simplicity of form and Surrealism’s scale shifts and object placement collide in an unexpected landscape.
Lipski also mines the humor and irony commonly found in Surrealism, an approach that merges the bizarre and the mundane as he treats examples of monumental industrial production as if they are smaller, consumer products. Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall! resembles a row of soccer balls, office desktop toys or a pearl necklace, but the parts are recycled steel ocean buoys, each one five feet in diameter and weighing 650 pounds. This formerly sea-worthy, but now land-locked, reclamation project embodies Lipski’s interest in combining what he calls “stuff.” In Lipski’s act of “reassembling the world,” the collision of the beached marine forms and their association with smaller objects become the artist’s way of thinking through the inner world of play and the outer world of reality."
Dedicated Sept. 2010
Buzzer, 2014–15
mixed media
dimensions variable
Dottie, 2014–15
mixed media
dimensions variable
Whisker the War Werm, 2014–15
mixed media
dimensions variable
"
Local artist Tom Huck designed two bug-like playground “springers,” Buzzer and Dottie, and a climbing apparatus, Whisker the War Werm, based on a series of his original woodcut designs inspired by the many insects inhabiting the micro-environment of the Park. Huck’s first public artwork, these monumental insects illustrate how both art and nature, when experienced together—and with a sprinkle of mischief—can inspire creativity and amusement in both children and adults.
A giant creepy crawler like Whisker the War Werm, 2014, would be incredibly mobile and able to carry heavy loads without breaking a sweat. A scarab beetle can roll the equivalent of 20 times its own weight in nutrient-rich dung without catching its breath (the humble scarab beetle also beat mankind to the wheel by millions of years!). Dottie’s death’s head design is reminiscent of the costumes worn by the Black Metal group, Gwar—complete with fangs, mandibles and horns. With each artwork, the effect is a blend of slightly comic and horrific. Combined with the more biologically correct body designs, each sculpture is part fantasy, part science."
granite
19 x 135 x 137 inches (each 63 inches in diameter)
"A series of three large, stone discs resembling a prehistoric style bean bag, Mark Menin’s Cores for Laumeier, 2003, employs the manipulation of earth’s geological formations, relying on human intervention to complete the work. Menin’s stone sculpture provides a primitive ergonomic seat to rest and contemplate the setting and your place within it; a lively integration of man in nature as art."
COR-TEN steel
276 x 240 x 144 inches
"Fletcher Benton’s, Donut No. 3, 2002, maintains a balance against improbable odds. In this monumental work, Benton contrasts symmetry and asymmetry, order and chance, logic and uncertainty. Using a coat of rusty red paint, each classical, colossal form exists neatly within the visual and conceptual Constructivist vocabulary. Benton believes that “one can obtain the highest aesthetic impact with the most economical statement; and the most vital and elusive of the sculptor’s materials is space itself.” In this work, Benton combines the heaviness of the COR-TEN steel with the rhythmic arrangement of pure geometric forms, exemplifying Benton’s willingness to adjust to thinking “in the medium.” The work is both rigid and organic in its formal arrangement, and is a complement to its place in the natural setting."
forged and fabricated steel, steel pipe, machined steel and mechanical parts, granite base, industrial enamel paints
204 x 80 x 8 inches
"George Greenamyer’s Heritage Schooner for Debra Lakin, September 30, 1998, 1998, pays homage to Laumeier’s former Director of Marketing and Public Relations, Debra Lakin. Greenamyer was approached by Lakin to create a commemorative sculpture shortly before her passing in 1998. The piece is a narrative illustration of her personal and professional family. The kinetic schooner depicts the boat Lakin had traveled on in Maine. She sits at the bow playing her favorite music by Claude Debussy. Her faithful German Shepherd sits behind her, along with former Laumeier employees who hold blocks of ice and fire to represent specific festivities at the Park. Lakin's brother and sister are also along for the adventure, carrying meaningful symbols including a Mickey Mouse hat and an evergreen tree. Lastly, her parents are seated at the tiller, safely guiding the boat and its passengers through the wind."
brick, concrete, stone, wood
dimensions variable
"Geoffrey Krawczyk’s site-specific installation Recess, 2014, is an interactive space that refers to the decline of the Cahokian culture and the contemporary decay of urban areas in St. Louis. Commissioned for Laumeier’s exhibition Mound City, the room-sized chamber is made from a mixture of new and donated reclaimed red brick from architectural ruins of North St. Louis. The engravings on a number of the bricks are from individuals in the community explaining their thoughts and ideas on the challenges facing St. Louis. The remnants of modern economic and social policy echo the decay of Cahokia 750 years ago. These parallels are drawn through the construction of a deteriorated building; its presence is meant to foster a discussion about adaptation, governance and progress. By combining symbols of the two historical situations with the voice of the contemporary community, Krawczyk hopes to create a “meta-site” that encompasses not only the physical, but also the psychological, marks left behind by societal change."
powder-coated aluminum grating, plants, paint, concrete pad, concrete footings, bleachers
dimensions variable
"Constructed largely of industrial materials, Flooded Chambers Maid sits in the landscape like a stage from a wild, Alice in Wonderland-esque dream. The interactive work is a colorful amalgamation that offers viewers a multitude of experiences with the work and the green space surrounding it. By using the language of architecture, Stockholder undermines the preciousness of much art, creating a social space where viewers become living components of the piece."
concrete with steel reinforcements
98 1/2 x 98 1/2 x 492 inches
"Donald Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space it creates. Laumeier is fortunate to have a major outdoor concrete work by this historically important artist. Untitled, 1984, consists of three open-ended, concrete cubes, aligned so that the viewer may look through them like a tunnel. Partitions are placed vertically inside each cube at varying angles, calculated to change the viewer's perception of the sculpture and surrounding landscape. The box form appears frequently in Judd's work and is considered a prime example of the conceptual interests of the Minimalist movement. Untitled illustrates this through Judd’s ability to create a work that refers back to its own material presence, combining industrial processes with a simplified exploration of color, volume and form. "
bronze with patina
109 x 109 x 125 inches
Sugabus’ colossal 6,000 pounds of bronze arranged into 45 globes resemble a giant balloon sculpture poodle. Sugabus also represents the interlocking elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen found in sucrose. Chambers’ cuddly title, a mingling of “Sugar” and “Cerberus” transforms the terror evoked by the mythological three-headed guard dog of Hades into a fluffy, domesticated pet. Has Chambers made this scary creature into a loveable puffball through association with a syrupy rush? The metamorphosis stirs together the legend, a love for pets and an elemental craving for sweets into a whimsical alchemy of sculptural forms.
Earthmover, 2014
bronze, rubber
dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist, Portland
Commissioned for the exhibition Mound City
"Born to the son of Wyoming ranchers and a daughter of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation (Iroquois/Haudenosaunee), Watt identifies herself as “half Cowboy and half Indian.” Watt’s Earthmover, 2014, commemorates the tools for the movement of earth to create the great mounds at Cahokia. The two sculptural elements that make up Earthmover are inspired by the human agency for the displacement of earth as ritual. A partially buried, recycled mega-mining tire creates a monumental rubber archway. It is believed that the Cahokians hauled 50–60 pounds of earth at a time to mound construction sites. In sharp contrast, the work also includes a stool, an inverted bronze cast of a burden basket, used by the laborers at Cahokia, designed as a resting spot. Burden baskets were shaped to conform to the back of the bearer; a strap was attached that looped from the bottom of the basket around the wearer’s forehead to help support the heavy load."
epoxy enamel on fiberglass
288 x 48 x 3 inches
" Jonathan Borofsky's Man with Briefcase at #2968443, 1986, is a towering, white-collar worker holding a briefcase, an archetypal image displayed as a cut-out figure. In 1969, to aid his concentration, Borofsky began a process of numbering pieces of blank paper every day. Each of his works is given the number to which he counted at the time of its completion. The number inscribed on this man insinuates sinister overtones and associations with concentration camp victims, soldiers’ dog tags and the series of numbers now identifying individuals in a technological society."
Crete, 1976–78
COR-TEN steel
637 x 196 x 139 inches
"Named after a Greek island, Charles Ginnever’s Crete, 1976–78, is one of ten steel sculptures from his Hellenic series. Ginnever titled each sculpture in the series after a Greek place, person or myth, with the intention for each design to be as long-lasting as ancient monuments. Crete’s angular structure offers an unexpected merry-go-round fluidity. Teasing the notion of perspective, the piece evolves into different configurations as the visitor encircles the piece—one triangular form closes just as another one opens. Ginnever attributes our ideas on perspective as constructed around a three-point diminishing perspective. With Crete, he focuses on an eastern way of viewing in which forms unexpectedly change as you walk around them."
Ken far ahead and ready to go!
painted COR-TEN steel
109 x 131 x 60 inches
St. Louis County SLC #063903
"Ernest Trova's Canto series shows his progression from 2-D work into large scale sculpture. The word “canto” is defined as a division in a long poem. In Profile Canto IV, 1974, it is meant to emphasize that each sculpture in the series was a further study in Trova's exploration of his previous Falling Man series. The profile of Falling Man is the unifying theme, and as his work evolved, it gave closure to his previously purely figurative exploration of the subject. Profile Canto IV uses this shape as a landscape, a conceptual technique that anticipates his sculptural forms of the 1970’s. Here, the figure opens like a flower, and sections of the profile resemble a mountain range resting on a distant horizon. From the front, the sweeping curves appear to be totally abstract. Upon closer inspection, parts of the human body can be discovered and the search becomes a visual puzzle."
pine timbers, white stain, nails
32 x 818 x 146 inches
"Seventy feet long, thirteen feet wide and following the contours of an uneven slope in Laumeier’s Way Field, Robert Stackhouse’s St. Louie Bones, 1987, creates a rippling silhouette on the Park’s landscape. Conceptually modeled by the presence of our two powerful waterways, the artwork is a wooden structure with many historical associations. St. Louie Bones may look like a boat-turned-Minimalist sculpture, but it also suggests a stage of primitive ritual. Resembling a rickety raft boat, the piece recalls those who live by and travel the river—from native tribes in canoes and the European immigrants who landed in steamboats, to the river pilots that keep the local economy flowing. Like a ship tipping into a wave, idea and form are linked in a visual metaphor, presenting a platform to express a literal, imaginary or spiritual voyage."
"Through this gigantic, blue eyeball, Tasset creates tension as the sculpture stares—larger than life—across the landscape and back at the viewer. Modeled after Tasset’s own eye, the never- blinking, constantly conscious piece watches over Laumeier day and night. The human eye is simultaneously unique, individual and emblematic; by focusing on a key part of the body, Tasset speaks to a commonality among us, addressing how we engage and perceive each other while concurrently asserting a prophetic, perhaps even omniscient, presence."
stainless steel (ed. 4/6)
57 1/2 x 10 3/4 x 22 1/4 inches
"
Ernest Trova is best known for his Falling Man series, which he worked on from 1964 until his death in 2009. Forged in the belief that “man is first of all an imperfect (or) fallen creature,” the Falling Man series encompassed everything from technical pride to man’s addiction to speed and the representation of the body without organs.
Falling Man/Study (Wrapped Manscape Figure), 1984 is wrapped from head to toe with a horizontal Falling Man. By dressing a large-scale Falling Man with the pattern of Falling Man itself, Trova is reinforcing self-identification and his view of man as “the center of all things.” The historical references in this piece extend from the Egyptian and Greek standing figure all the way to Renaissance statuary to pop and comic book action figures. This funerary style figurative statue remains firmly upright. Falling Man/Study is a high-tech mummy configured like a toy robot; its pose is that of the machine that no longer knows it is a living being, or vice-versa."
Notice the signage in the back? It's:
Laumeier U-ME-UM, 1998
neon light in Plexiglass case
36 x 120 x 14 inches
" Inspired by his family, music and his love of the open road, artist and songwriter Terry Allen uses sculpture as a window into the human condition, and a search for the truth of human experience. Allen’s interest in the combination of language and light, and the fusion of nature and artifact, is both dark and playful. As the letters pulse in red, green and blue, alternating in a poetry of motion and implied sound. Placed in contrast to the domestic architecture of the Estate House—now the Kranzberg Education Lab—the text surges with power and exuberance."
In front is:
Mix (Americana), 2013
found cement mixer, wooden blocks
97 x 179 x 96 inches
"Brazilian artist Alexandre da Cunha (b. 1969) describes his practice as “pointing” to already existing objects, in order to reveal something new, unexpected and/or inherently charming and interesting. Mix (Americana) is a full-scale cement mixer. Polished and painted in a patriotic red, white and blue, the sculpture has been stripped of its mixing duty on the back of a truck and staged instead as a functional sundial. When viewers peek inside the steel hallowed chamber, light gently reflects and refracts, creating an intricate web of shadows and shapes, giving splendor and mystery to the industrial barrel. Within the context of Laumeier’s green space, Mix (Americana) inspires discussion about the suburban landscape and the complex meeting point between natural and manmade environments."
cast bronze
96 x 169 x 154 inches
Loan courtesy of the artist
"Steve Tobin’s Walking Roots, 2002, converts facets of nature into sculpture. Drawing on his interest in history and the natural world, Tobin is inspired by the power and wonder of ancient structures at Easter Island, the Giza Pyramids and Stonehenge. This work is a replica of its underground root system, created when Tobin excavated a dead oak tree on his property. Cast in bronze and then reassembled with the help of an archaeologist, Walking Roots exposes the active and wonderfully complex world that lies beneath the soil."
painted steel
78 x 264 x 216 inches
"Tony Rosenthal's House of the Minotaur, 1980, takes its name from the ancient Greek myth of King Minos of Crete, who built a tortuous labyrinth where the Minotaur, a creature half-man and half-beast, was held. Here, a series of prismatic steel panels are arranged to form a playful maze, creating a public, participatory sculpture. The artwork embodies the artist’s sentiment for human interaction with the built environment by way of endless visual variation; the architectural puzzle is meant to provoke the viewer into an ongoing dialogue with the work.
urethane skin on steel, ceramic tile, stained glass, mirrors, stones in epoxy grout, silicone grout
108 x 88 x 100 inches
"Ricardo Cat almost purrs contentedly as it cuddles seated guests. A curiosity for culture leads Saint Phalle to lap up equal measures of theology, myth and legend. This sculpture draws on Egyptian, Greek and pre-Colombian tales about felis catus, encapsulating the roles of playful kitten, sheltering mother and mercurial companion by incorporating wild fantasies and everyday objects within its fur of mosaic shards. The azure-headed feline also embraces the contradictory representations of good versus evil, male versus female, comfort versus terror. Underneath the polychromatic "tabby-calico-van-tuxedo" coat of ceramic and glass, a watertight urethane skin covers a stocky, concrete steel armature. The visible effect combines joyful and despairing icons built upon the foundation of the artist’s independent playfulness."
Gox No. 3, 1974
stainless steel
109 x 60 x 20 inches
"
Ernest Trova’s Gox No. 3, 1974, comprised of jumbled geometric cut-outs, is aggressive in tone with a rigid repetition of active angular forms. The negative shapes teeter precariously while confined within the solidity of the steel framework. The word "gox" stands for "geometric exercise," and represents Trova’s ongoing dedication to work in a series. Although the Gox pieces were a break in Trova’s evolving figurative studies, he continually searched for the synthesis of the figurative and the abstract as he became more interested in geometry.
Ernest Trova’s gift of 40 artworks to St. Louis County in 1976 brought Laumeier Sculpture Park to life. Many of these works are displayed throughout the Park and the region, keeping Trova's legacy alive both at Laumeier and in the St. Louis community."
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