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1. Campus and Town Tours

   • Outdoor Sculpture

     Non-representational works on campus invite contemplation of form and are closely connected to the Grinnell community.

     Stops

     1. Ikram Kabbaj, Osmosis

        Ikram Kabbaj
        (Morocco, b. 1960)
        Osmosis, 2007
        Alabama Cremino marble, carved in Grinnell, September 2007
        48 x 78 x 78 inches

        Commissioned for the Grinnell College Art Collection, Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund

        Located: east of the train track between Rosenfield Center and Lazier dormitory.

        A Moroccan Goddess in Grinnell

        I meant to use this title the moment when I saw sculptor Ikram Kabbaj in action at the track field of Grinnell. So dedicated, working on her marble, like a lover courting her hard, sometimes unresponsive beloved. But here lies the pleasure, all the pleasures in the Arab convention of courtly love: the harder, the crueler the marble beloved, the more loving, bent in love like an Islamic arch in an ancient mosque, the lover becomes. It is raw pain for the two sides, pain of love, love’s labor that is so deep it hits the roots where pleasure/pain is undistinguishable.

        The other day she was holding her marble model in one hand close to her breast, rocking it as she was saying, “This is my baby.” This dedicated love, artist’s love, is surely capable of discovering the heart in the hardest marble, an Alabama marble. Without this kind of dedicated, single-minded, near religious love the marble would never give shape.

        Ikram, this tiny woman of Morocco, is worshiping and being worshiped by a stone. In her splendid isolation, she is competing with God, because she is a creator like Him. Hence is the cause of the banning of the plastic arts in Islam that was zealously learned from the jealous God of the Old Testament: “8. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me.” (Deuteronomy 5:8-9)

        It is not, I suspect, the fear of worshipping the idols instead of God that caused early Muslims’ hostility to art; rather it’s the fear of the creativity of the artist, since all creativity must be a monopoly of God. But the artistic passion might be suppressed, yet it is indestructible, like an unstoppable river, it’s the libido, that cunning, fluid, stubborn god, or actually goddess Dionysius in Euripides’s The Bacchae. This artistic passion, ever persistent and assertive, finds its own ways even in the most self-repressed religious devotees; despite their own religion, they find themselves insinuating their artistic passion, or rather their artistic passion insinuating itself in form of arabesques, or in the stunningly beautiful calligraphy of the Qur’an, and the intoxicating power of the Qur’anic chanting.

        The artist, even when he or she, out of belief in the blasphemy of art, suppresses artistic urges will inevitably and unconsciously create a palinode. Hence the essence of our humanity: it is in this eternal wrestling with God that the artist asserts her equally divine nature. Imagine a world without God, and we will have a foreboding vision of a world where every thing is lawful and permissible. Imagine a world without artists; it means the complete absence of salubrious challenge and adventure — that emptiness would bore even a jealous God.

        Professor Saadi A. Simawe, September 16, 2007

        About the Artist

        Ikram Kabbaj received her education in sculpture from the Ècole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She lives and works in Morocco between Casablanca and Marrakesh. Her work was featured in the Rabat Biennale at the Muhammad VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2019. Her work was featured in the exhibition INSTALLATIONS: 7 International Artists with Roots in Morocco, 2007, curated by Kay Wilson, curator of the collection and she carved Osmosis during an artist residency at Grinnell College.

     2. Gregory Miguel Gómez ’80, Broken English

        Gregory Miguel Gómez ’80
        (American, b. 1958)
        Broken English, 2019
        Welded stainless steel, sand-cast bronze with patina
        46 inches high x 221.5 inches in diameter (tube diameter 22.5 inches) on a 4 inch base

        Gift of John B. Chambers ’77 in memory of his wife Jean Marie Chambers

        Located: on the Kington Plaza, just east of HSSC 

        In his sculpture Broken English, Gregory Gómez ’80 uses strong hard materials – steel and bronze – to construct a surprisingly delicate piece that celebrates the power of art to reach back to the past and ring true in the present. The bronze letters that repeat the first three lines of W. B. Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” form a net of text around a thick tube sitting on a low plinth. The patina on the letters lends them age and weight. The letters do not cohere immediately into lines, but the order is there in the sculpture’s inner structure. Gómez then breaks the flow of text and pulls his loop up abruptly, interrupting the continuity of thought and form.

        Yeats’ poem, written exactly 100 years ago in 1919, feared the anarchy that accompanied the end of World War I, the war to end all wars. Yeats’ most famous line from the poem may be “things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” While Gómez selected the text for his sculpture before the 2016 election, it has proven to be a powerful commentary on our own era’s flirtation with chaos. No doubt, his art will resonate with the future in ways we cannot anticipate.

        Broken English rests on the plaza in front of the Humanities and Social Studies Center where light catches the steel spokes that hold the letters. Sitting at the height of a bench, the sculpture has a quiet presence, but it does not rest easy. Only with some effort do Yeats’ words come into focus and fall into place. Gómez works masterfully with the sense of Yeats’ poem in the sculpture’s form: it is a circle disrupted, threatening to let go of its center. But Gómez does not illustrate Yeats – he engages him through his title, Broken English. His compelling sculpture suggests that though communication in difficult times can falter, the breaks may allow in new and perhaps regenerative ideas.

        About the Artist

        Gregory Gómez is a painter and sculptor from a family of physicians and scientists. Gómez looks to nature, graphic, scientific and mathematical information, language, and other archetypical forms to inform his work. After graduating from Grinnell College, he received his MFA in printmaking from Washington University. He is currently on the studio art faculty at Boston University. His public art commissions can be found at Youngstown State University, the Challenger Learning Center, Harvard Medical School, West Chicago Public Library and other venues.

        By: Lesley Wright, Director, Grinnell College Museum of Art

     3. Paul Theodore Granlund, Alpha and Omega Sundial

        Paul Theodore Granlund
        (American, 1925-2003) 
        Alpha and Omega Sundial, 1990
        Cast bronze with brass gnomon
        112 x 142 x 126 ¼ inches on 206 inch base

        Gift in Memory of Harriet M. Gale by the Class of 1939 and Friends 

        Located: South of Kington Plaza between Noyce Science Center and HSSC

        Telling Time by the Sundial

        by Professor Grant O. Gale

        If the sundial (slit) does not agree with your watch, don’t blame the sundial, blame the sun. Due to the eccentricities of the solar system, sundial time (solar) and clock time (CST) may be off by as much as 25 minutes!

        The sundial is mounted on a north-south plane on the 92° 43' meridian, with the gnomon, the stainless steel strip, parallel to the Earth’s axis, i.e., pointing to the Earth’s geographic pole (the North or pole star). The angle of elevation of the gnomon is the angle of latitude, 41° 45'. These angles were determined by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey about 1916.

        The elevation of 1095 feet is based on a bench mark in the northeast corner of the porch of Goodnow Hall. This was placed in 1932 by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Grinnell is the highest place on the Rock Island Railroad between Chicago and Omaha.

        The seasonal monthly changes will be indicated by the length of the noon shadow indicating the angle of elevation of the sun; long shadows in the winter, short in the summer.

        Sun time and standard time (not daylight saving time) differ for several reasons. One is a constant difference due to our position in the time zone. The other is a seasonal difference due to the fact that winter days are longer than summer days.

        Our Central Standard Time is determined by the 90° meridian which runs roughly through Madison, Wisconsin and St. Louis, Missouri. The time zone, which is 7 1/2 degrees on each side of the meridian, is about 750 miles wide at our latitude. Arbitrary zone borders are set by the states and determined by state borders and local and commercial considerations. Through Iowa this is essentially from just east of Chicago to Ogallala, Nebraska.

        Since each 15° represents an hour, each degree of longitude is four minutes. At our longitude, 42° 43' (i.e., 2° 43' west of the 90th meridian), sun time is nearly 12 minutes behind standard time.

        A more subtle and irregular difference between sun time and standard time is due to the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit, making winter days longer than summer days. In devising the calendar, the lengths of days were averaged, making a “mean solar day.” Other features of celestial geometry complicate things still further resulting in corrections called “the equation of time,” adding or subtracting as much as 15 minutes, depending on the season. The sculptor has used a design from Sundials, by Frank W. Cousins to fabricate the gnomon which can be turned, the curved images of the slit reflecting these seasonal corrections.

        About the Sundial

        An ingenious three-dimensional construction, Alpha and Omega Sundial serves many functions. Carefully designed, it achieves its most obvious function — the brass portion of the gnomon may be adjusted to read the local sun time. More than acting as a sundial, the piece also clearly labels the cardinal directions. In addition, the sculpture creates an informal entrance area for Noyce Science Center, the piece becomes the center of a sitting area for students studying or pausing between classes. It also acts as an interesting transition between the Humanities and Social Studies Center and Noyce. From the area of the sundial, the two buildings sit in opposition to one another, each representative of distinct disciplines — the sciences and the humanities. The sundial builds a physical connection between the tools of language and the tools of science, referring to the Greek roots that influenced both fields.

        Alpha and Omega Sundial, however, consciously moves beyond its Greek roots to illustrate the role of science in many cultures: various numerals from many societies embellish the sundial. Artist Paul Theodore Granlund carefully chose these numerals to reflect each time zone across the globe. As he said during his dedicatory remarks, he made this embellishment “So that when one wants to know the time, one will also have global thoughts of other cultures and other times in history.” And so, Alpha and Omega Sundial tells us not only our current time and location, but also refers across years and miles to represent other places and times, both ancient and contemporary.

        Engraved directly into the Alpha and Omega Sundial is its title, along with its latitude, longitude, and elevation. These facts, along with its functional purposes, allow it to act as a strong visual marker for the science building. This seems fitting, as it is a gift in memory of Harriet M. Gale, wife of the late Grant O. Gale, professor of physics at Grinnell from 1928­ to 1972. These specific notes about location also relate to its original placement. Though it has been relocated twice due to construction — never far, however, from its first site — Alpha and Omega Sundial’s original location marked the site of the College’s heating plant chimney. Surveyors used the chimney as a geodetic marker, as it was a landmark visible for miles; their notes about the chimney’s location — made circa 1916 — helped to determine important facts about the sundial’s positioning. The sundial now expands that tradition, acting as a functional and aesthetic landmark.

        For Granlund, the project was expansive as well. “This project turned out to be a bit bigger than I originally envisioned,” he said. “A lot more figuring — more welding — more sweat — but well worth it for that first AH­ HA — that cutting into a circle and finding an end, an omega and then the alpha — the place to begin.” As part of the sundial, alpha and omega, signals of beginning and end, showcase the cycles of the sun. As Granlund explains, “The beginning and ending letters of the Greek alphabet are used metaphorically to signify the extremities of various phenomena, including time.” A sculpture that intertwines beginning and end, past and present, Alpha and Omega Sundial functions as both tool and text, observer of and observed for the passage of time.

        About the Artist

        Paul Theodore Granlund was sculptor-in-residence at Gustavus Adolphus College from 1971 until his retirement in 1996. His artistic career spanned more than fifty years and 650 pieces. Granlund graduated from Gustavus in 1952, and won a George C. Booth Scholarship to attend the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where he received an M.F.A. in 1954. Also a teacher, Granlund taught at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and was a visiting artist at University of California, Berkeley, Washington University in St. Louis and Cranbrook, his alma mater. An accomplished artist, he won both Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships to study sculpture in Italy. Granlund primarily worked in cast bronze, and more than 30 of his bronze sculptures dot the Gustavus campus. He also has pieces in Peace Park, Nagasaki, Japan, and the State Capital in Saint Paul, Minn.

        By: Christine Hancock ’06

     4. Louis Glenn Zirkle, Untitled

        Louis Glenn Zirkle
        (American, 1932-1986)
        Untitled, 1975
        Cor-ten steel
        153 x 37 x 36 inches

        Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund

        Located: South side of Noyce Science Center

        Louis Zirkle’s steel sculpture Untitled was the first piece of Grinnell College’s outdoor sculpture collection. The sentinel-like structure stands as a monument to Zirkle’s commitment to public art, his dedication to examine art and environment. Although now made of cor-ten steel and located near the south entrance of Noyce Science Center, Zirkle originally conceived of the piece as a small brass sculpture. He found, however, that its form begged for a monumental scale. Though he did not usually work on such a large scale, and though the College did not yet have a collection of outdoor sculpture, Zirkle persevered and initiated Grinnell’s program of outdoor art.

        Zirkle carefully planned to create a piece meant for the outdoors, changing the medium from brass to cor-ten steel, a type of steel that develops a protective rust coating. This corrosion process stops at a certain depth, preserving the form and producing its distinctive maroon color. Pleased with Untitled’s size and color, Zirkle affectionately referred to the sculpture as “Big Rusty.” Although he wanted to construct the sculpture by himself, its size again prompted Zirkle to adapt. He had the steel bent and welded by professionals in Chariton, Iowa, and he finished the details by hand. Untitled serves as an expansion of scale in Zirkle’s career, both in size and intent. This sculpture is the only one of its size created by the artist, and its intent was impressive in scope: to serve as the impetus for a larger collection of artwork.

        The meaning and inspiration for the sculpture are mysterious; however, as the artist’s wife, Merle Zirkle, explains, “The sculpture is uplifting, but controlled; it is a type of celebration.” Like Zirkle’s aspirations, his sculpture strains as it reaches confinement. Its top and bottom expand from its slender center as Zirkle experiments with concavity. Although each side is unique in shape and curvature, the basic shape of the piece is rectangular, suggesting a stretched, squeezed duct. Tensions define the form of this piece: its asymmetrical sides and inconsistent curvature allow the sculpture not only to expand and contract as it grows upward, but also to lean as if charging forward.

        The piece interacts with its environment in the scientific sense, through the physical and chemical decomposition of its steel, but it also interacts with the student population on a regular basis. Although Zirkle left his sculpture untitled, students of Grinnell College affectionately refer to it as “The Zirkle.” The sculpture has become a cultural icon of sorts, serving as a meeting point, appearing in student films, marking — as Zirkle hoped — the benefits of public art and the dynamic ways in which sculpture and site interact. 

        About the Artist

        Louis Zirkle, sculptor and professor of art, Grinnell College, received a B.S. from Southern Illinois University in 1957 and an M.F.A. in 1959. He and his wife, Merle Zirkle, also an art professor, came to Grinnell in 1961 as artists-in-residence and shared a teaching appointment. Although known for his sculpture, Zirkle worked in several media including jewelry, silversmithing, design, and ceramics, all of which he taught at Grinnell.

        By: Meredith Ibey ’00, updated by Christine Hancock ’06

     5. Robert Glenn Craig, Untitled

        Robert Glenn Craig
        (American, b. 1964)
        Untitled, 1994
        Cor-ten steel, aluminum
        12 ½ x 8 ½ feet

        Commissioned by Grinnell College with the Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund

        Located: West campus, between Steiner and Goodnow Halls

        Artist Robert Craig planned this sculpture — a site-specific commission — as a direct response to its location.

        “Some influences on the design,” he said, “were the line quality found in the mature trees on campus, the stonework of Goodnow Hall, and the wedge space of land that the sculpture is sited to.” And Untitled’s design suggests these influences. The main sections of the sculpture grow up directly from the ground, strong trunks that still bend slightly to cross one another. Craig constructed the lower portions of these trunks from linear sections, large, irregular blocks that hint at stonework. The more organic shapes of the piece — such as the white section that crowns Untitled — play with the form of a wedge, adding curls and rolls.

        As he designed, Craig also considered the importance of the nearby walkway into campus from Park Street, which opens the campus and community to one another. As such, the arch­like shape of the sculpture suggests a metaphorical doorway into the campus.

        When designing this sculpture, Craig focused on the forms and situations found in the rural places of the Midwest. He became “increasingly interested in how objects, such as machine parts and rocks, are deliberately preserved by man and metamorphosed by nature” (artist statement). Such objects, after exposure to the elements, “become sun-bleached, rusted, and reduced to basic structures.”

        Untitled explores this reduction, presenting a core of form that feels almost incomplete. Meant to inspire a nostalgic feeling in viewers, Untitled appears aged, weathered, and forgotten, like old rusted agricultural machines or the remains of farms in the fields of the Midwest. In exploring the surrounding site as well as the shifts in Midwestern culture, Untitled simultaneously connects viewers to their present location and past time.

        About the Artist

        Robert Craig is an associate professor of art at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He holds an M.F.A. from Florida State University ­Tallahassee (1988), and a B.A. from Eastern Illinois University ­Charleston (1986). His work is in many public collections, including the Hearst Center for the Arts, Cedar Falls, Iowa; the Nautilus Foundation, Tallahassee, Fla.; and Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa. He has participated in more than 60 regional and national exhibitions.

        By: Meredith Ibey ’00, updated by Christine Hancock ’06

     6. Angelo Granata, Sophos

        Angelo Granata
        (American, 1922-2009)
        Sophos, 1960
        Carbon steel with protective paint
        138 inches; base 22 ½ x 16 ½ inches

        Purchased with funds from George S. Rosborough, Jr. ’40 and the Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund

        Located: North side of Burling Library

        Angelo Granata’s spindly construction Sophos stands west of the main entrance to Burling Library. This statue, thin and angular, rises over students and visitors. Made of rejected scraps, it suggests Granata’s desire and ability to recycle. The sculpture began with the main shaft of a rejected piece of steel from a previous sculpture. He chose the components from a pile of scrap metal at a nearby manufacturer, and began to fit them together, bending and welding them where appropriate. For Granata, the sculpture composed itself — he merely aided in its construction. Sophos depicts this sentiment: it shoots unattended from the ground, almost ungainly.

        Granata chooses to explore nonrepresentational forms in his art. By using simple shapes — such as the overwhelmingly linear components of Sophos — he hopes to produce art that may be enjoyed by the viewer without explanation. Sophos fully demonstrates his interest in simplicity, but its title, an ancient Greek word meaning wisdom or skill, complicates the simple pleasure Granata intends to invoke. Sophos acts as a marker, noting Burling — and Grinnell College in general — as a communal place for study and knowledge. But as Granata attempts to show in his sculpture, wisdom may also be solitary, simple.

        About the Artist

        Angelo Granata received an M.F.A.from the University of Iowa in 1948. His works are in collections at Georgetown College in Kentucky, the Figge Art Museum, Iowa (formerly the Davenport Municipal Art Gallery) and the University of Alabama. Granata, professor of sculpture at the University ofAlabama from 1948 until his retirement in 1988, is now professor emeritus. He was a friend of Grinnell College Professor of Art Louis Zirkle, and it was through Zirkle’s aspiration for an outdoor sculpture collection that Sophos came to Grinnell.

        By: Meredith Ibey ’00 and Christine Hancock ’06, updated 2006

     7. Ingrid Lilligren, Babe’s Turn

        Ingrid Lilligren
        (American, b. 1949)
        Babe’s Turn, 2002
        Cor-ten steel, aluminum, cast bronze, enamel paint
        60 x 46 x 46 inches

        Babe Voertman Memorial Fund

        Located: North side of Bucksbaum Center for the Arts

        Ingrid Lilligren’s sculpture Babe’s Turn acts as a memorial to B.G. “Babe” Voertman ’67, assistant professor emerita of theatre at Grinnell College. Voertman, a dancer and thespian, committed much of her life to enriching Grinnell’s arts community until her death in 1999. At Grinnell College, she was not only a dance instructor, but also a choreographer, director and actor. In addition, she often worked with Grinnell Community Theater, acting and directing. Voertman requested that Milton Severe, director of exhibition design for Faulconer Gallery [now Grinnell College Museum of Art] and a close friend, commission a sculpture with funds given in her honor. And so, even after her death, Voertman and her memory continue to inspire art at Grinnell. With its warm colors and whimsical shapes, Babe’s Turn stands as a bright reminder of Voertman’s commitment to art, as well as a memorial to the bright presence she offered to those who knew her.   

        Severe’s decision to commission Lilligren for the work involved several factors, combining personal and artistic considerations. “I chose [Lilligren],” he said, “because she’s a woman and Babe was a staunch feminist, and because her work is very playful.” Though Lilligren did not know Voertman personally, stories, anecdotes, and photos were provided to the artist by friends of Voertman. Lilligren also toured Voertman’s home. Through these experiences, in Severe’s estimation, “[Lilligren] had a pretty good visual idea of Babe’s tastes” that allowed her to create an appropriate memorial. In addition, Lilligren was guided by one of Voertman’s two specifications: that the sculpture should be of a dancer. Though abstract in form, Lilligren’s sculpture suggests a dancer’s movement, balance, and grace.

        Babe’s Turn plants itself beside the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, fulfilling Voertman’s other requirement — that the sculpture should be placed near the dance studio. The base of the sculpture is a sheet of rust-red steel, sharply angled to suggest two legs. Constructed from a sturdy material, the base suggests the strength and balance of a dancer. Organic cut-outs in the legs effectively lighten the piece, adding curves and swoops to instill a sense of careful grace. The upper section of the sculpture consists of several curving aluminum sections attached to a central spoke. These petal-like pieces, painted with marigold and orange geometric designs, slowly rotate in the wind. A clever manifestation of the title, this section of Babe’s Turn perpetually pirouettes. A bronze squiggle tops the piece, continuing the turn ever-upward. In fitting and sweet memorial, Babe’s Turn echoes several of Voertman’s passions — it works to represent dance while also continuing to enliven the Grinnell area arts experience.

        About the Artist

        Sculptor Ingrid Lilligren earned a B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls (1980) and an M.F.A. from the Claremont Graduate School (1986). Hired at Iowa State University (Ames) in 1993, she is currently an associate professor of art and design. Lilligren’s work focuses on “organic, biomorphic forms” (artist statement) that tend to explore notions of femininity within their shapes. Her work won a research grant from Iowa State University, and she was also chosen to sculpt several murals for the school.

        By: Christine Hancock ’06

     8. Erik Levine, Glial Axon

        Erik Levine
        (American, b. 1960)
        Glial Axon, 2001
        Cast aluminum
        62 x 68 x 80 inches

        Commissioned for the Grinnell College Art Collection

        Located: North side of Bucksbaum Center for the Arts

        Playfully poised before the entrance to Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Erik Levine’s Glial Axon (2001) seems, to many students, to echo the shape of a musical note. Its curved contours hold an undulating rhythm. Levine says the piece is ultimately nonrepresentational, but he enjoys the idea of audience associations with the work that attribute a certain life to the sculpture, “It dances,” he says. An ambiguous form, Glial Axon nonetheless resonates.

        Commissioned by the College in conjunction with Faulconer Gallery’s Energy Inside exhibition of 2001, Glial Axon was crafted after a wooden model of the same form. Despite its direct relation to the wood piece, Levine feels Grinnell’s sculpture “certainly exists on its own.” The process by which it was made — and the corrugated “Swiss cheese” effect resulting from this corrosion of a solid metal surface — are meant to embody a sense of space and time that is at once past and future. The holes on its surface imply a continuing breakdown, but are nonetheless a fixed trace of previous corrosion. With this material, Levine notes, “Something static can represent something fluid.”

        The work’s title also reflects this concept of motion. Glial Axon derives from the terms “neuroglia” and “axon” — scientific terms associated with the process of muscular movement stimulated by nerve endings. Levine says the title is not to be taken seriously, but rather as “a suggestion.” It is a humorous play with words.

        As the sculpture was not specifically designed to represent its site, Associate Director of Faulconer Gallery Dan Strong says it is “serendipitous” that Glial Axon has become so tied to its location and musical references. Yet Levine does say he wanted to make a piece that could be “emblematic.” Thus, situated as it is — beside a space dedicated to the arts — Glial Axon’s lyrical form can suggest the creative process.

        About the Artist

        Born in Los Angeles in 1960, artist Erik Levine currently lives and works in New York. His drawings, plywood sculptures, and cast aluminum sculptures have been shown in galleries and museums in France, Germany, Denmark, and Spain, as well as across the United States. His work is part of public collections at the Des Moines Art Center, the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.).Levine has won several awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1992) and several awards from the Pollock­ Krasner Foundation (1999, 1990, 1996), and the National Endowment for the Arts (1989, 1987).

        By: Miriam Stanton ’05, updated 2006

     9. Rico Eastman, Morphosis

        Rico Eastman
        (American, 1952-2012)
        Morphosis, 1999
        Assembled steel
        100 x 110 x 130 inches

        Gift of Vernon E. Faulconer ’61 and Amy Hamamoto Faulconer ’59

        Located: South side of Bucksbaum Center for the Arts

        Morphosis once stood in the rotunda of the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, a grand introduction to Faulconer Gallery’s first exhibition, Re-structure, in 1999. Its 16 interlocking steel sheets form a colossal structure in themselves, creating a sense of movement because they weave over, under, and around one another. The sculpture’s ability to stand freely on only a few small surfaces affords it with an unexpected lightness despite the actual weight of the steel assemblage. Morphosis is held together through “friction and gravity, becoming interdependent physically as well as aesthetically” (artist statement).

        This sculpture is the fourth work in a series of large sculptures, preceded by Sheet Music (1998), Fugue (1998), and Fugue Variation (1999), which derive from Eastman’s “interest in the structure of classical and contemporary music” (artist statement). Each of Morphosis’ steel sheets relates to a sound or positive element of music, while the negative space of the sculpture relates to the “rest” in which the sound stops, developing the rhythm and uniqueness of a musical composition. When listening to a piece of music, one can focus on the part of the oboe, drum, or any other instrument, searching for the relationships between parts and unlocking the harmony or melodic interactions between these musical voices. Such interaction between listener and performer leads to an appreciation of the whole, while still acknowledging each individual element.

        Now located on the south side of Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Morphosis serves as a new introduction — from the street to campus, from the outdoors to interior space. As a form dedicated to musical imagery, the sculpture harmonizes perfectly with the purpose of a fine arts building — to encourage the collaborative and individual pursuit of creative expression. Like a musical composition, Morphosis can be observed and appreciated for its unity, or the viewer can focus on one separate steel sheet, participating in the movement while unlocking the integrity of a single line.

        About the Artist

        Rico Eastman received a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, R. I. (1974), and finished his education at Arizona State University­ Tempe, where he received an M.F.A. in1985. Eastman once worked as a designer with Bob Moss, inventor of the original pop tent. Once his work was no longer built from fabric and the tension of poles and supports, Eastman’s work explored the nature of structure and the strains of gravity. For much of his career, Eastman lived in the Southwest. His sculptures reside in many private and public collections across the United States, as well as in Hong Kong.

        By: Meredith Ibey ’00 and Miriam Stanton ’05, updated 2006

     10. Walter Hood, Grinnell Crossroads

         Walter Hood, Hood Design Studio, Oakland CA
         (American, b. 1958)
         Grinnell Crossroads, 2020
         Site-specific installation, wood, concrete, crushed stone, plantings

         Commissioned by Grinnell College

         Located: City lot at southeast corner of Hwy 6 and Hwy 146

         Grinnell Crossroads welcomes people to the community by honoring the past and providing a space of respite in the present. Located at the crossing of two state highways, the installation is inspired by the foundations and walls of two homes and a carriage house that originally stood on this site. The diagonal lattice walls evoke local wooden covered bridges and fences. Visitors circulate on paths that echo walkways at Grinnell College, moving through the ghost houses. Grinnell Crossroads celebrates the crossing and intersecting lives and histories that compose Grinnell.

         Walter Hood is the winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2019 and numerous other awards. The work routes visitors between this site and campus, inviting participants to uncover remnants of Grinnell’s past to bring them into the present. Hood combined collective exploration with archival research to create Grinnell Crossroads, activating a once-vacant lot with memory and life.

         About the Artist

         Walter Hood, a native of Charlotte, NC, received his BA in architecture from North Carolina A&T State University. He has both his Masters of Architecture and Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, along with an MFA in studio arts and sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He founded Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California in 1992 where he designs both local, community-based projects and major landscape architecture commissions for institutions from the DeYoung Museum (San Francisco) to the University of Virginia. Hood teaches landscape architecture at UC Berkeley.

         By: Lesley Wright, Director, Grinnell College Museum of Art

     11. Andy Goldsworthy, Prairie Cairn

         Andy Goldsworthy
         (British, b. 1956) 
         Prairie Cairn, 2001–02
         Iowa limestone, dry-stone construction
         65 x 56 inches

         Located: Conard Environmental Research Area, Kellogg

         As part of an installation that spanned the United States, Andy Goldsworthy constructed one of three temporary stone cairns in a reconstructed prairie at Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA) in March of 2001. The two other cairns were created in tidal zones near New Rochelle, New York, and Pigeon Point, California. Made at low tide, they were then photographed by Goldsworthy as the incoming waters destroyed the stone structures.

         Prairie Cairn at CERA was completed before the prairie grass had begun to grow and was photographed over a period of 18 months to document the sculpture in varied weather conditions. The result is a suite of large-scale panoramic images, now in the collection of the Des Moines Art Center, showing the cairn with varying heights of grass, in snow, and amid flames as the prairie was subjected to a controlled maintenance burn in May of 2002. Although considered one of the temporary works, Prairie Cairn should last for decades before eventually succumbing to the effects of the weather. The cairn was constructed with limestone quarried in Iowa.

         Prairie Cairn is part of a project initiated in 2001 by the Des Moines Art Center for Andy Goldsworthy: Three Cairns, then the largest project in the Western Hemisphere by the British artist. The project spans the continent with permanent and temporary stone markers called “cairns” at sites on the two coasts of America and the Midwest. Two key components of the project in Iowa are to be found within 50 miles of each other: Prairie Cairn (Midwest temporary cairn) near Kellogg, 12 miles west of Grinnell, and the Three Cairns (Iowa permanent cairn) at the Des Moines Art Center. Prairie Cairn was commissioned by the Des Moines Art Center in collaboration with the Faulconer Gallery and the Center for Prairie Studies at Grinnell College.

         For more on the project, contact the Grinnell College Museum of Art.

         About the Artist

         Installation artist Andy Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire, England, in 1956. He completed his studies at Bradford College of Art (1974­-75) and Preston Polytechnic (1975-­78). Goldsworthy often creates temporary sculptures outdoors, but documents his work as it changes with its environment through photography. Goldsworthy’s work spans several continents: his work has been made in the Northern Territories of Canada, the North Pole, Japan, and the Australian Outback.