Corporate Head for Business
In Los Angeles, developers must contribute one percent of the cost of new buildings to a fund for public works of art. The plaza at 7th Street and Figueroa in Los Angeles is decorated by a project called "Poet's Walk," which its development funded. Kathy Lucoff, the art consultant hired to decide on the type of works and the artists, decided to have artists collaborate with poets and create small, human-scale works which could be discovered while walking around the plaza.
The project really works. This is the plaza I eat lunch at, and I pass through it to and from work every day. It's great to look down and see a snippet of a poem, or something that looks too quirky to have been part of a corporate development. Explore, and you realize you're surrounded by works of art.
The piece that first struck me is called "Corporate Head," by Terry Allen. It's a literal take on a man's whole head being in the corporate business world, only his body left outside. The following poem is engraved on a plaque in the floor directly behind the sculpture.
I absolutely love that this piece was funded by the same institution it challenges.
There is another piece, "Once There Was a Forest" which is similarly subversive. Large bollards are the most distinct element of the street corner, and this piece subverts their shape to make a statement about ecological conservation. What the developers have intended as benches get double-duty as representations of the stumps of trees that would be standing if this area was undeveloped.
More information:
The project really works. This is the plaza I eat lunch at, and I pass through it to and from work every day. It's great to look down and see a snippet of a poem, or something that looks too quirky to have been part of a corporate development. Explore, and you realize you're surrounded by works of art.
The piece that first struck me is called "Corporate Head," by Terry Allen. It's a literal take on a man's whole head being in the corporate business world, only his body left outside. The following poem is engraved on a plaque in the floor directly behind the sculpture.
They said I had a head for business.
They said to get ahead I had to lose my head.
They said be concrete & I became concrete.
They said go, my son, multiply, divide, conquer.
I did my best.
I absolutely love that this piece was funded by the same institution it challenges.
There is another piece, "Once There Was a Forest" which is similarly subversive. Large bollards are the most distinct element of the street corner, and this piece subverts their shape to make a statement about ecological conservation. What the developers have intended as benches get double-duty as representations of the stumps of trees that would be standing if this area was undeveloped.
More information:
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