SCOTTSDALE CULTURAL COUNCIL
BILL TIMMERMAN
“Moving Memories”—Arizona’s official memorial to 9/11—has created a stir in both the local and national press. Created by artists Eddie Jones and Matthew and Maria Salenger, the circular design features statements about the war that are made legible through projected sunlight.
“PILLARS OF THOUGHT”
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Wavelength
Civic Center Library, as well as some of the controversial pots along State Route 51. Elayne Achilles, Ed.D.—who spent a year cataloging the Valley’s public artworks for the GEOPA Project for the Maricopa Partnership for Arts and Culture [see page 34]—is a fan of WaterWorks. “It’s an almost spiritual experience as you sit before the falls on the rocks and feel the electricity being generated,” she says. Plus, the water cools the lower level by about 10 degrees. Scottsdale’s “The Path Most Traveled” by Denver artist Carolyn Braaksma is another example of a work that straddles the line between art and urban design. You’ve seen it, no doubt, along Loop 101. But pay attention the next time you circle southbound around Pima Road. You’ll start seeing more and more noise barriers with cactus patterns, repeated green geckos on the underpass supports. At the Shea Boulevard exit, a dramatic curved embankment rises to the right, and these images begin to roll past in the right scale and rhythm to suggest a narrative. The climax lies south of Shea. There, you’ll drive into a 50-foot manmade canyon with gigantic wall graphics, boasting a wealth of visual detail all around. Dig it or not, it’s one stretch of American highway that will make you wonder. And in case you want to stop and wonder, Achilles suggests that you park your car on a side street and walk to the
middle of the intersection at Cactus Road: “The artist placed a similar gecko right in the middle of the crosswalk,” she says, a treat for the intrepid explorer. Like the pots along SR 51, this kind of adornment isn’t typical of a highway sound wall. “Take a look at the Berlin-style walls being erected along freeway corridors up and down the East Coast to appreciate what adding artists to projects can do for the built landscape,” Lebow says. “Braaksma’s design for the 101 wall is a good example of how artists and public art have changed expectations for infrastructure design.” While in Scottsdale, don’t forget to wheel by the lesser-known Chaparral Water Treatment Plant at Hayden Road and McDonald Drive. The work here borders and spills over into a public park; stop and have a walk around. What might have been an ugly, windowless building, like the butt-end of a big-box retailer is instead a concerto of gabion walls and concrete bowls, panels of angular rusted struts, and shade structures overhead, stretched taut and suggesting flight. It’s masterful. The architects were Black & Veatch; the exterior work was by Nader Kavakeb of Swaback Partners. At Arizona State University in Tempe, public art has changed the campus experience. ASU boasts its own sizable collection—named one of the nation’s top 10 by Public Art Review in 2006. One of the most intriguing pieces resides inside the Administration A Building: a colorful, dramatic 1951 mural called “Man’s Wisdom Subdues the Aggressive Forces of Nature” by Jean Charlot. French-born, Mexican-
trained and a major figure of the Mexican muralist movement, Charlot was pals with Orozco and Rivera. A Hopi Snake Dance enlivens the mural on the second flight of stairs, while giant hands preparing anti-venom serum anchor the flight below. Back in downtown Phoenix, in the shadow of the State Capitol, you’ll find a patch of green called Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza and a cluster of 23 memorials worth a stroll. The strength of this collection is its oddity, its obscurity. It almost seems like a secret. Wander around, discover your own favorites, and you’ll eventually arrive at the newest piece, “Moving Memories,” which is controversial for a portion of its message but unnoticed for the brilliant way it uses the Arizona sun. Some of the city’s newest major public pieces are on the Phoenix Art Museum at McDowell Road and Central Avenue. The building is unmarked at the corner and could be a corporate headquarters, or a bus garage. This was on purpose. The architects, Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, intended to mark the museum with art instead of signs. This plan was completed a couple of years behind schedule with the installation of a public-art video piece, “Julian and Suzanne Walking” by London-based artist Julian Opie. Opie specializes in graphic simplifications of the human figure and this piece is easy to stare at,