Art in Public Places: Year Two

This is the second year the Dogwood Arts Festival has produced Art in Public Places, a three-month installation of large outdoor sculptures in Krutch Park.

The first year was an enthusiastic success, with crowds of people milling around and examining the largely progressive and dynamic works on display. The sculptures were so thoroughly embraced by the public, the Dogwood Arts office was bombarded with alarmed calls when the show ended and the work was removed (except for Viewer’s Choice winner Taylor Wallace’s “Self reflection”).

Some people thought the work was being stolen. Others were just angry the work to which they had grown so attached was no longer on display.

This year’s work is even more dynamic. The show is cooperatively produced by Eddie Mannis, board member and past-board president of the Dogwood Arts Festival, and Bart Watkins of Liz-Beth Galleries. North Carolina painter and sculptor Wayne Trapp, who also supplies the exhibit with one of his own works, is the curator. Additional artists are Jason Brown, Alan Finch, Mike Roig, David Whitfield, Stephen Kishel, William Moore, Kevin Eichner, Bill Brown, Kyle Lusk, Richard Hallier and Zophia Kneiss.

The sculptures included in the show range from simple geometric forms to complex kinetic structures. The exhibit’s two most dynamic pieces flank the park’s entrance on Gay Street. Trapp’s large kinetic sculpture, “Ring in Motion,” features a tilting galvanized steel, horizontal circle, balanced on a single red steel post with smaller, curved steel leaves sprouting from the top of the circle. The square base of the piece, coated red like the post, contains a single silver orb.

Across the walkway, Roig’s “War of the Whirleds” seems even more inspired by the instrumentations of science used to measure wind velocities and cosmic movements. Dull purple and bronze coats the double base posts, which rise up to support two rotating spirals of long stems attached to polished, curved steel plates that catch the wind. It moves slowly and gracefully, as if breathing with the elements surrounding it.

Whitfield’s “Go Take a Hike” and Kishel’s “Summer Bloom” resemble simple avatars. “Go Take a Hike,” constructed of galvanized steel, is a bent tubular human form with a square head, supporting itself from a long pole. “Summer Bloom” is coated bright red, and features round eye shapes attached to bending fronds of gently twisting steel.

Brown’s “Breakaway” and Eichner’s “Animosus Circulus” are more organic in nature, their uncoated steel structures left to develop rust-toned patinas. “Breakaway” combines a flat, rectangular base sheet with a simple curved upper arm balancing an indented ball, dynamic and understated. “Animosus Circulus” is a cluster of tall, hollow steel rectangles that branch off into curved plant-like fringes.

Kneiss’ 10-foot-tall double sculpture, “Buford and Bud,” echoes the plant theme. The giant steel flowers bend over the viewer, as if appraising them as a potential food source.  The petals open widely, reflecting an alert personality.

Brown, UT professor of sculpture, has supplied the exhibit with “Prop,” a large red circle made of wood, steel and rubber. At one corner of the base of the circle, the round edge cuts off to make a straight angle attached to an industrial-size caster. Because Brown combines his sculpture with performance, “Prop” is not intended to be a statically installed public sculpture: It is merely resting before being pushed along into another area to interact with whatever activity may be going on there.

Finch’s “There’s No Place Like Home” is like an acid-induced Wizard of Oz. Finch’s twisted marble house is anchored inside its own steel tornado. A work of careful engineering, the steel tornado section was sub-contracted to local blacksmith Joe Babb. The piece has spent the past few years installed at Ijams Nature Park at Meads Quarry, not too far from where the marble was originally quarried.

The only weakness in the exhibit is that more local artists, well known for large outdoor sculpture, are not present. Hopefully, with a longer development period next year, there will be more awareness and networking for the call for work and deadlines, resulting in more submissions from Knoxville-area artists. It is still impressive to see that the Dogwood organization, with just a brief planning period and three people, was able to supply the city with a collection of sculpture that would take the usual bureaucracy years to put together.

Art in Public Places
Krutch Park, downtown Knoxville
Through July 12