Louis, 2016

Louis (2016) a Featured Public Project commissioned for ArtPrize 8, in Grand Rapids, MI, demonstrates my approach to site, collaboration and audience.  The large, open, modernist concrete plaza and the looming presence of the iconic La Grande Vitesse by Alexander Calder presented significant challenges, both formally and in terms of audience interaction and reception.   Louis needed enough physical presence to hold its place, both in relation to the monumental Calder work but also on the expanse of the windswept plaza.  Ultimately Louis’ pavilion, hive-like structure engaged viewers from afar; its cellular forms allowing visual access to the interior. Inside the world outside was framed anew, the massive bright red-orange Calder isolated inside one of the 175 tapering rings that made of the structure. From outside Louis appeared as a solid domed mass, from inside the world was outlined in a delicate tracery of lines of packed circles.