Sculpture puts Indianapolis in spotlight

INDIANAPOLIS -- Move over, Lilliput. Gulliver is in the heartland, and he has a message: Art is for everyone.\nThis message is courtesy of artist Tom Otterness, who has brought his 37-foot-long rendition of the literary giant to Indianapolis for an exhibit arts leaders hope transforms a city better known for its speedway than its sculptures.\n"I think it's the first major step to putting us on the cultural map nationally," said Mindy Taylor Ross, public art project coordinator for the Arts Council of Indianapolis.\nGulliver and 24 other Otterness sculptures will be displayed around Indianapolis from April 15 through the end of July in the largest public art exhibit the city has ever coordinated. Many of the works were featured in a popular New York display that ended in March. This is the first Indianapolis exhibit for Otterness, a Wichita, Kan., native whose work also includes gates at Cleveland's public library, a museum exhibit in the Netherlands and the facade of the Los Angeles Federal Building. Otterness, 52, said he looks forward to seeing his work in a new setting.\n"I've seen them in this big East Coast city. I will like the opportunity to see them ... in a new context," he said.\nHe visited Indianapolis in February to scout locations for his sculptures, which range in height from about 2 feet to 21 feet. He looked for places where people tend to congregate but also chose spots based on how he thought existing art and architecture would complement his pieces. He chose a statue of former Gov. Oliver Morton outside the Indiana Statehouse as the backdrop for "Mad Mom," a 10-foot-tall figure with a cone-shaped upper body and hands resting on her hips in disgust.\n"It's this 19th-century image of the man governing, the dad -- the great dad -- flanked by his sons, and, to me, 'Mad Mom' in the middle of that seems like a perfect \ncounterpoint," Otterness said.\nOutside the Indianapolis Children's Museum, where a giant dinosaur figure heralds a $25 million display about the Cretaceous Period, Gulliver's long legs point to the walkway that leads visitors to the main entrance. It's a good place for Gulliver, Ross said, because "he's more on the level of kids."\nThe morning of Gulliver's arrival, three young girls began circling the sculpture as soon as it was in place, giggling and poking at it. One perched on Gulliver's upturned toes for a photograph. Otterness welcomes the entertainment value but said he thinks public art also serves a more serious purpose.\n"I think it really functions now the way the public square used to," he said. "It serves as a vehicle for people to debate with each other about the purpose ... it allows people to talk to each other about subjects we don't normally discuss -- sex, race, class, money."\nIn Cleveland, which the U.S. Census Bureau last year labeled the poorest city in the United States, public art has helped beautify public and residential spaces and draw positive attention to the city, said Greg Peckham, acting director of Cleveland Public Art.\nThe city's displays have included Louise Bourgeois' "Spiders" -- three arachnids, the largest one 20 feet tall, that stood like surreal umbrellas over a public plaza in 2002 -- and a permanent exhibit by Otterness, who designed the gates and other sculptures in the reading garden at the Cleveland Public Library.\n"It is the most successful public place in the city of Cleveland -- the gates, they grab you like nothing else from the street," Peckham said of the Otterness display. "It's such a simple idea that's created a kind of powerful entryway to this space."\nRon Huelster, executive director of the Downtown Waynesville Association in Waynesville, N.C., said public exhibits can inspire people to examine their views about art. His mountain town of about 10,000 people coordinated a public sculpture competition called "Streetscapes" for five years, ending in 2003. One of the sculptures, called "Cowlifter," looked like a claw used to pick up a crushed car.\n"The librarian here was driving by here with her daughter, and her daughter said, 'Well, what is that?' and so they stopped and they got out of the car and looked at it," Huelster said. "And that instigated a conversation about what is art."\nIndianapolis officials hope Otterness' exhibit will have a similar effect as it boosts the city's arts identity.\n"Indianapolis does not have mountains, and it does not have an ocean. Sports, arts, culture -- those things define us," Ross said.\nRoss said Indianapolis already has a strong tradition of public art through its monuments, architecture and museums, including the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Children's Museum. The Otterness exhibit might help people appreciate the art they see every day, Ross said.\n"I think it makes art more approachable to every person in the community," she said.