Scottsdale Public Arts will celebrate the oldest and newest pieces in the city’s permanent art collection with a special event on April 13 from 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm at the newly renovated Scottsdale Building.
The Scottsdale Department of Public Arts will hold a special event on April 13 at the newly renovated Scottsdale Community Center from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm, highlighting the oldest and newest art from the city’s permanent collection.
The event will feature Desert Gardens, a new mosaic by Arizona artist Tammy Lynch-Forrest installed outside Scottsdale City Hall, and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Louise Nevelson’s West Window, the city’s first collection. art. Two works of art are conveniently located across the lawn from the Civic Center.
“This event celebrates Scottsdale’s 50-year tradition of integrating public art into the making of our city,” Scottsdale Director of Public Art Katie Ballares said in a written statement. “We know that our residents and visitors appreciate the thoughtful design of the city, but few people know that Scottsdale public art has played an increasing role in this process since the early 1970s. This public art piece is an incredible opportunity to celebrate and tell this story.”
For many years, The West Window, also called Atmosphere and Environment XVIII, stood on the southeast corner of Scottsdale City Hall near 75th Street. During a recent renovation of the outdoor areas of the Civic Center, the Western Window was deposited. He returned, but in a new location north of the Scottsdale Performing Arts Center, shortly before the first phase of the Civic Center opened in January. This new location is more suited to the sculpture, nicknamed “The West Window” because it faces Civic Center West Avenue, a corridor that runs west to connect with Main Street shops in Scottsdale’s Old Town.
Wendy Raisanen, curator of public art collections and exhibitions in Scottsdale, said in a written statement that Window to the West began when the Scottsdale Fine Arts Council raised funds from the City of Cotesdale National Trust, a permanent public art collection. The Arts Foundation commissioned Louise Nevelson (then 73), America’s most respected female sculptor, to design the then-new Scottsdale Civic Center.
“It was a bold move for the early 1970s, when virtually all public art in the country was created by men, and the other American sculptors working on the project were also men,” Raisanen said in a statement. “Nevelson was a true pioneer in her art and life. As a young artist at Scottsdale High School, I looked up to her as a role model and icon.”
Among the committee members who took this bold step were two prominent Arizona artists: Philip K. Curtis, who would go on to found the Phoenix Art Museum, and Dorothy Fratt, whose work will be featured in the forthcoming Scottish Museum of Art. exhibition at the Dyer Museum of Contemporary Art (SMOCA).
Also on the committee is Katherine “Kaks” Kirland Herberger, noted art philanthropist and mother of the late Judd Herberger, who, along with her wife Billie Jo Herberger, inherited her mother’s philanthropy in recent decades.
When Nevelson traveled to Scottsdale to find locations for her work, she said, “In a way, Scottsdale is lucky to attract such sophisticated people who understand that good art is important to the value of the environment.”
However, when Window to the West was first installed in 1973, some outspoken residents of Scottsdale did not appreciate the art’s modernity, preferring instead its Western realism, Raisanen said. Eventually, many residents fell in love with the West Window and named it the most popular sculpture in the collection in the late 1990s. In recent years, he has also been awarded the Phoenix New Times “Best Permanent Public Art” award at the Phoenix Magazine’s annual Awards.
In a letter to public art administrators in 1978, Nevelson said, “I would like to confirm that the ‘atmosphere and environment’ was created for a more closed mall environment, where a constant stream of people would interact to complete the environment I envision.” people with my work is the grace that she lives by. The location of the shopping center close to the energy of the arts center also makes sense.”
Raisanen said she thinks the sculpture’s new location — even closer to the Scottsdale Performing Arts Center and SMoCA, at the prominent entrance to the Civic Center — finally matches the artist’s vision.
Just as the West Window was the artistic highlight of the former Scottsdale Civic Center mall, so a new public piece of art has been commissioned for reopening this year, now known as the Scottsdale Civic Center. Arizona artist Tammy Lynch-Forrest creates a colorful and detailed mosaic wall along a water feature in the southwest corner of Scottsdale City Hall.
Lynch-Forrest’s work, The Desert Garden, will also serve as a timeline for the Scottsdale region, depicting three eras of the earth through existing flora and fauna. The artist says that people often mistake the desert for a barren place, but this work highlights all the creatures that make it a “desert garden”. Some of the tiles that make up the extensive garden mosaics are under a dime, and almost all of them are handmade by artists.
When Lynch-Forrest first submitted his art proposal, the artist didn’t know it would be in such a prominent place.
”I’m amazed at the beauty of the Civic Center and what happened there,” Lynch-Forrest said in a written statement. “I’m honored.”
The April 13th event will kick off with a Window to the West with speakers and dance performances before moving on to the Desert Gardens tribute event with additional speakers, live music, food and giveaways.
Other notable public works of art in the Scottsdale Civic Center include Robert Indiana’s Love sculpture and Giorgio-Anne Tonioni’s figurative bronze The Young Ones and the Winfield Scott Memorial.
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