This title was digitized by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA).
About Art papers. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1981-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1981)
the rest suffered neglect at the hands of the Turks who occupied Greece. The Alexander Liberman, untitled, 1968, remains in place just to the right as you enter under the Forakis. It was not a very impressive piece when it was new—a series of upright steel poles painted pale green support ing one larger vertical beam, but now has peeling paint and rust amid weeds that nearly obliterate its eight foot height—the pilgrim visitor shud ders at the poignancy of its neglect. So it is with all of the pieces. Some are gone, some rust and peel, some have been brutally damaged. At the first intersection along the main parkway (which once looked like a parkway but now looks like a back alley) is an interesting piece by Isaac Witkin, Skate, 1967. It is horizontal on a long concrete base consisting of three white circles sur- rounted by blue fin-shaped pieces that seem to skim the surface. Today, of course, the piece is rusted and faded. To the left on the corner was where the Sol Lewitt, A-7, 1966, was placed. It is gone now, but was a square lattice-work grid composed, typically for Lewitt in this period, of smaller square modules. A-7 was based on a grid of nine elements with the center square dominant. On the opposite corner stood the Josef Albers piece, Garden, 1966, now a wreckage, which was compos ed of horizontal and vertical rec tangles consisting of the materials and colors he had designed for the build ings in the park. In the parkway just beyond the intersection stood the shining chrome reflective square column by Beverly Pepper, Torre Pieno al Vuoto (Tower of Emptiness), 1967. Only the bare pedestal stands today. Probably the Pepper was abducted to Milwaukee by MGIC. Up the road on the left still stands one of the best Will Insley pieces I have ever seen. It has endured the MGIC/Gateway Park neglect and carelessness well. The untitled steel black cross base with a fifth element erect, done in 1968, stands on its base atop a mound of earth. Its blackness defies weather, its monumentality defies vandalism, its height defies the weeds—it perseveres triumphantly and nobly. Yet one hesitates to praise it too much for fear the barbarians in charge will lust for it. Mon Levinson’s untitled wall piece from 1968 has also endured. Perhaps the owners of the building to which it is attached deserve some credit. The tricky kinetic illusionism of Levinson’s Op art style is thoroughly dated now. Strange that such a decor ative piece has survived. Farther up the parkway around the first turn is where the Snelson was. Wiggm’s Fork, 1967, was one of Kenneth Snelson’s best pieces in a period when he was a serious and in novative artist. Five chrome poles—three short uprights with two long horizontals suspended by chrome cables—made it a poetic demonstration of tension in space. It sat for years on a flimsy wooden base and, of course, must have been part of the Milwaukee loot. The High Museum wanted this piece in par ticular but had been assured by MGIC that disposing of such an integral part of the park was not contemplated. Was this a lie or did they change their minds? Now we read in the newspaper that the Atlanta Library is interested in Snelson, along with such greats as Portman’s favorite, Charles Perry, and the politically acceptable, Richard Hunt, after rejecting three beautiful maquettes designed for them by the late Tony Smith. I doubt if any but a small fraction of the Library Board was even aware of the Great Southwest Industrial Park or saw the remarkable Snelson there. At the second intersection there still stands a Nassos Daphnis, Untitled, 1968, and a David Hall, Second Box, 1965. The Hall is especially fine, or was, with its original pure white sur face in the image of an open, flat car ton. It had humor, grace and abstract strength. Now the paint is peeling in large sheets and the rusted surface has become, ironically, a place for Com munist Party posters—talk about vandalism and neglect in an industrial park! Originally a right turn at this intersection would have taken you to a Donald Judd wall piece, but it and other pieces were purchased by the Aronson Gallery. The High Museum of Art purchased Tal Streeter’s Red, 1973, from them. That Streeter can now be seen on the south side of the Arts Alliance. The museum also bought the red, hand-cranked George Rickey that stands beside the entrance next to his more elegant stainless steel kinetic piece. Other pieces still standing up the parkway include an ugly black wooden piece, New Dynasty, 1964, by Toshio Odate; For Liz, 1966, by Anthony Magar, which looks similar to an early Charles Ginnever; an unlisted piece by Dwayne Hatchett; an early Robert Murray; and, stan ding in the middle of the parkway, a badly damaged piece by Peter Reginato, Moon Eyes, 1968, which looks like it has been hit by a truck and crudely repainted. Originally its simple trabeated portal shape with opposing triangular posts had a sing ing yellow color. It now sags and lists in a dingy paleness. Turning left toward Fulton Indus trial Boulevard again, along the back avenue of the original area of the park, near the corner lies the empty concrete base with the savagely twisted ends of an uprooted Forrest Myers, Calipers, 1968. This was once an important piece by this seminal artist of the 1960’s with bright yellow corner pieces implying a large square volume of space between them. The wreckage suggests that the Myers was not abducted but worse probably vandalized and destroyed. Farther down is Kalamazoo, 1966, the beautiful linear piece by Jack Kreuger, one of the most interesting artists of this period. The sculpture lies collapsed and rusting on its con crete platform. But, miraculously, a beautiful, monumental Peter Hutchinson piece, Blue Triangle, 1968, has survived. Probably its remote placement has saved it, if not from neglect, at least from the worse fate of vandalism. Finally, at the last intersection, Dorothy Berge’s untitled Cor-ten steel piece of 1968 stands un daunted and also ignored. Her piece is the only one by a local artist in the original installation and holds its own with all but a few truly exceptional pieces. Out of the original thirty pieces (not counting those in storage) only fifteen remain and most of those are overgrown with weeds, rusting, peel ing, wrecked and vandalized. MGIC and its local branch, the Atlanta Gateway Park, should certainly be held accountable for their shameful neglect, destruction and abduction of some of the best sculpture produced in this country and representative of an unique moment in the history of the relationship between art and business. The citizens of Atlanta should be especially outraged, but that might seem hypocritical at this late date. How many artists or art patrons in Atlanta visited the Gateway Park over the last fifteen years? Last year the Atlanta Arts Festival paid a large sum of money to bring in a small packaged exhibition by the Construct group, all of whom work in the 1960’s aesthetic, including a Snelson, while the Gateway sculptures languished forgotten. Action must be taken immediately to save and restore the pieces that remain at Gateway Park. Pressure, nationally and regionally, must be brought to bear upon the barbarians who now own them. Legally, they may own Gateway Park, but ethically they must not be allowed to destroy that over which they have been given charge. They must be either shown that their industrial park can be enhanced by returning to Angus Wynne’s vision or pursuaded to relin quish the surviving pieces to Atlanta, the community for which they were originally meant. Save the Atlanta Gateway Park sculpture survivors! Or at least go out to see them—and weep with the dead. John Howett, Professor of Art History at Emory University, raises many provocative questions in his impassioned plea for the preservation and appreciation of these neglected -sculptures. Art Papers will investigate the whereabouts, conditions and history of the Great Southwest In dustrial Park’s sculpture collection and present our findings in future issues. Today trucks rumble through weed- grown, trash-strewn lots with empty pedestals and rusted hulks of once splendid works of art. —John Howett
