Plexiglas Relief for the Great Southwest Industrial Park, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

Abstract

A few miles west of Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., a very large Industrial Park has been cut out of the wilderness and is being developed with miles of roads, elaborate landscaping and, surprisingly, it is graced by many large sculptures. Instead of an industrial slum, growing just anywhere, deteriorating even as it is born, the Industrial Park is conceived as a centre of industry in terms of reason and beauty. It becomes a place to be admired rather than an unsightly complex to be avoided. Not many buildings are up so far (about thirty) but expansion is rapid and the site is planned to accommodate over two thousand buildings. My own commission to make a sculpture for this project was given to me with little ceremony. I was asked to make something ... material and subject unspecified. I would have a surface about 25 feet long and 18 feet high against which to place my work. It could be a standing piece as large or as small as I chose or it could be a wall sculpture. I was not provided with a blueprint or a layout of the site, both of which I could have used. Most commissions are so heavily supervised by architects and other interested parties that the sculptor or painter is hemmed in on all sides and a lack of spontaneity results. This was definitely not so with the Great Southwest Company's Park in Georgia where the art director is Douglas McAgy. After a little reflection I decided to make a wall sculpture; a relief. Up to that time all my sculpture had been cast in bronze which for such a sizeable piece would have been too cumbersome and expensive. I also felt a new material with various colours should be used in that setting. I therefore decided to use red, black and white Plexiglas (Perspex). The forms of my relief were to be large because I had been told that there were no sidewalks along the roads and that the workers would approach the factory buildings by car. The work had to be bold to be seen and absorbed easily and quickly. When a 1/12 scale model I made was accepted, it remained to find out how to approach the actual making of such a piece. The work was to consist of fourteen pieces attached to a pinkish-tan brick wall.