U City Sculpture Series Opens Sunday, April 7

Five student sculptors were chosen to participate in the 2013 Washington University/University City Public Sculpture Series, which opens on Sunday, April 7, with a reception in University City Public Library.

See our previous story: Diverse Art Highlights 2012 Sculpture Series

This is the 27th year for the sculpture series, which features the works of Washington University students competing for the opportunity to design public art for University City.

The pieces include:

• Seth Czapleweski’s “Ceramic Sculpture” takes shape outside the Centennial Greenway in Ackert Park at Leland and Clemens Avenues. Composed primarily of Missouri Fire Clay, the sculpture will also contain live, growing, grass and corn which Czapleweski planned as “homage to University City founder Edward Gardner Lewis’ biotech beginnings and St. Louis’ current role as the U.S. leader in biotechnology.”
• “Street Performer,” by Dara Katzenstein, will not only be seen, but occasionally heard, on the corner of Leland and the Loop North, across from the Metro stop. Made up of almost 200 brass bells, Katzenstein’s piece was designed to reflect the music of the Loop. “Each time a gust of wind blows by the wall or when people walking by run their hands along the bells the space will be awakened with music,” said the artist. 
• Catherine Leberg’s piece “The Seed Men” will literally grow at Barbara C. Jordan Elementary School, with the help of the fourth grade art class. Leberg plans to assist the class in creating, in paper mache-like fashion, human shapes with special “seed paper” which will later take root in planter boxes made of plastic packaging. Her goal, she said, is not “just to create a green space, but also to emphasize the importance of green spaces.”
• Aiming to call attention to the complex relationships between the “natural system that exists around us” and “structures created by man,” Jon Orosco fashioned a “Cabinet of Curiosities” for display in the University City Public Library. Orosco takes artificial materials like porcelain and combines them with natural forms, like the spiked fruits of a sweet gum tree dipped in clay, to imitate forms built by nature.
• Over in Mooney Park, visitors will enjoy many different perspectives in “A Play of Perception” by Sarah Theis. A stand of colorful circles can be seen as themselves at different angles, but at one point you’ll see the circles focus into a single landscape Theis hopes will create “a sense of wonder.” Her sculpture is designed to give visitors a new look at the familiar sights of Mooney.

More information on these works and the opening reception will be available at the Arts & Letters commission website. The reception will be held from 2-4 p.m. at the University City Public Library.