WELCOME CENTER SCULPTURE HIGHLIGHTS, PART 1

In addition to horticultural displays and architectural details throughout, the Welcome Center will feature prominent works of sculpture by major international artists Jaume Plensa, George Segal, Yinka Shonibare CBE, El Anatsui, Alexander Calder and Marshall Fredericks, whose work began Fred Meijer’s passion for collecting sculpture. Part of the permanent sculpture collection, the placement of these works and horticultural elements reflects our mission as evidenced throughout the Gardens & Sculpture Park. Read on to learn more about a few of the newly placed sculptures and the artists who created them.

EL ANATSUI. NEW WORLD MAP, 2009.

El Anatsui was born in a small town on the coast of Ghana. His father was a Kente cloth weaver, the traditional West African fabric. During the 1960s, when Anatsui was studying art at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, the country achieved independence. In 1975, he moved to Nsukka, Nigeria to assume a teaching position at the University of Nigeria. Now retired from teaching, Anatsui still lives and works in Nsukka. He is now considered one of the most important living artists from the African continent.

El Anatsui’s art is steeped in the traditions of West Africa, including signs and symbols derived from Akan people in Ghana and Igbo in Nigeria. He has incorporated African design into sculptures made from wood, clay or fabric. In the past two decades, he used metal, especially aluminum bottle caps from liquor bottles, to create sumptuous wall hangings such as New World Map, a work that we acquired specifically for the Welcome Center. Although it refers to a map in its title, New World Map is not a specific geographic space. This sculpture is vibrant with color and texture as it expands and contracts across the surface.

El Anatsu. New World Map, 2009.

Kirstin Volkening

ALEXANDER CALDER. POLYCHROME LURES, 1975. (Left)

Alexander Calder is one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th Century, famous for his large outdoor sculptures placed in city centers and sculpture parks around the world. In West Michigan, he is best known as the creator of La Grande Vitesse (1969), the iconic sculpture in downtown Grand Rapids. Calder was born into a family of artists who wanted him to become a mechanical engineer. He eventually gave up working as an engineer and studied art in New York and Paris, where he became fascinated with the circus. His first sculptures were miniature circuses made with found objects. His breakthrough came in the 1930s with the creation of abstract kinetic sculptures that were suspended and able to move with air currents. By the 1950s, he began to develop large standing mobiles that still looked airy and light but stood on the ground—so-called stabiles.

Dating from late in his career, Polychrome Lures is a synthesis of Calder’s career. It has the suspended parts of the mobile but with a stationary base, and it is therefore referred to as a standing mobile. The brightly colored shapes are reminiscent of the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, whose work Calder first grew to admire when he lived in Paris. The work is a wonderful example of Calder’s whimsical approach to modern sculpture.

Alexander Calder, Left. Marshall Fredericks, Right.

MARSHALL FREDERICKS. LORD BYRON, 1938; CAST 1995. (Right)

Marshall Fredericks is a sculptor with strong ties to the Midwest and specifically Michigan. He studied at Cleveland School of Art, Cranbrook Academy, as well as several European academies and studios. He was a versatile and prolific sculptor whose specialty was architectural sculpture and fountains often commissioned for important civic buildings and plazas. In Michigan and beyond, he may be best known for the sculpture Spirit of Detroit in downtown Detroit. Fred Meijer acquired his first Fredericks sculpture for his hometown of Greenville, Michigan, based on a Hans Christian Andersen children’s tale. Fred developed a great fondness for Fredericks’ work; when Meijer Gardens opened in 1995, 33 bronzes by the artist were installed on the grounds.

Lord Byron is Fredericks’ homage to the famous 19th-century Romantic poet. The sculptor fittingly portrays the poet as a man of great emotions and inner turmoil, his head thrown back and his hand raised to his forehead. Visitors can enjoy familiar Fredericks sculptures inside the Welcome Center such as The Thinker and Seven Saints and Sinners, and they will have a great view of the sculptures Siberian Ram, Flying Wild Geese and Wings of Morning, all located just outside the Welcome Center windows in the newly renovated Ram’s Garden.