Expanding Visual Arts Outdoors

Maria Molteni, Venusian Rosaceae (detail), 2020

HANNAH, RRRolling Stones 2.0, 2020 Iván Navarro, This Land is Your Land (detail)

Expanding Visual Art Outdoors

Contemporary art can be found everywhere you look at the Momentary. And when we say everywhere, we mean it—not just in the galleries, but outside as well.

Beginning with the now iconic You Belong Here neon sculpture on the side of the RØDE House and the popular RRRolling Stones 2.0, which double as seating for visitors, outdoor art at the Momentary expanded to include artists such as Iván Navarro, Yayoi Kusama, and Maria Molteni.

Visitors taking a stroll around the grounds of the Momentary might come across a field of mirrored spheres placed next to the building’s industrial architecture. This work, artist Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden, invites us to slow down and appreciate our surroundings.

Near Onyx Coffee Lab’s entrance on the east side of the building, artist Iván Navarro’s engaging water towers hold hidden neon words and symbols for visitors to look up and find. Inspired by Woody Guthrie’s iconic 1940 song of the same name, This Land is Your Land examines the history of migration in the Americas and the United States.

In the fall, the team worked with muralist Maria Molteni who developed a mural in response to the Momentary’s history. 2020 also began the first year of the Momentary Flag Project, a rotating series of artist-designed flags raised on the factory’s historic flag pole, located on E Street. The series asks artists to explore the symbolic resonance of flags and consider how they shape our understanding of place and identity. This year, the project included designed flags from artists Christopher Myers and Gabriella Sanchez. In 2021, three new flags are anticipated to rise over the course of the year, beginning with artist Olalekan Jeyifous.

This Land is Your Land is sponsored by Olivia Tyson, Larry and Winnie Kearns, and Visit Bentonville.