New sculpture showcase brings art to Iowa City parks

New sculptures are livening up the environment in Iowa City parks.

The Iowa City Sculpture Showcase opened Aug. 6, and features work from three Iowa artists displayed in Mercer Park, Riverfront Crossings Park, and City Park.

The showcase is part of an effort from the Public Art Advisory Committee to offer more opportunities to local artists, and display public art in more areas of the city, Neighborhood Outreach Director Marcia Bollinger said.

“We have an awful lot of artwork in the downtown area, because that’s always been a major focus,” she said. “With this project particularly, they decided to look at parks and trails, to get a different population of people, who might be more out for recreational events.”

Three of the works are at Riverfront Crossings park, and there will be one installed at both Terry Trueblood Recreational Area and Mercer Park.

The sculpture at Mercer Park, “The Other Extreme” by Tim Adams, is a colorful sunburst designed to fit the atmosphere of the park.

“That’s a very active, family-centered place,” Bollinger said. “There’s a large playground over there, and we felt like the families would really appreciate that piece of sculptures.

Hilde DeBruyne’s Bloom, which will be displayed at Terry Trueblood, is a vivid blue sculpture that Bollinger says will help mark the transition between the recreation area and the trail system.

“Riverfront Crossings park was more of a neutral situation, where [at] Mercer and Terry Trueblood park, we wanted something that really livened up that space,” she said. “The artwork was chosen specifically on the effects that the individual sculptures had in terms of the environments that they were installed on.”

The total budget for the project was $10,000, with each of the artists receiving a $1,500 dollar honorarium.

The sculptures are intended to rotate each year. These five will be on display until summer 2022.

“This could very well be something that every year we add, another pad or two and just keep expanding it as we go along,” Bollinger said.

The showcase received applications from five different artists. Bollinger hopes this number expands in future years.

“We also hope the program will become more popular and artists will become more aware of the fact that we do this, so the number of submissions will increase considerably,” she said.

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