2017, currently on view
steel, glass mirror, concrete, enamel paint
36 x 89 x 32 feet
Shafer, MN
Commissioned by Franconia Sculpture Park with support from the Jerome Foundation
A series of voids are defined by black figures: pairs of mirrors mounted to 28’-tall repurposed City of Minneapolis lampposts. These units have their own meter and time, marking ways in which we understand competing notions of territory.
The work takes its formal arrangement from the locations of existing artworks in the surrounding sculpture park, yet holds its own as a cluster of repeating elements. Mowed paths emphasize these networked corridors through the prairie landscape, in a clear departure from the existing rectilinear walking paths and sculptures aligned with the Midwestern Jeffersonian grid. From a single vantage point, all the artworks are erased from view and the horizon is restored.
People come here to have impromptu runway shows with friends, take family portraits, and feel the prairie breeze while immersed in their recombinant surroundings. As you move through, the surrounding artworks, people, and environment appear and disappear from view, putting the whole of the context in continual juxtaposition and rearrangement.
by
Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers
with
Fabrication and installation: Bo Jacobsson, Erik Grinde, and Todd Fitcher of Jacobsson Carruthers. Matt Falve, Samantha Rathbun, Matthew Mroz, and Angela St. Vrain of Franconia Sculpture Park.
Photography: Caylon Hackwith