Julia Taylor, Artist, Writes in Support of "Greenwood Pond: Double Site"
On January 28, 2024, Julia Taylor wrote the following letter to the Des Moines Art Center (DMAC) Director Kelly Baum concerning plans to demolish Greenwood Pond: Double Site, a site-specific installation by the internationally acclaimed leader of the land art movement, Mary Miss, commissioned for the Art Center’s permanent collection. The work, which opened in 1996, is in a diminished condition with some sections fenced off, suggesting the DMAC has not fulfilled its contractual obligation to “reasonably protect and maintain” the work. The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is calling for the DMAC to reverse it demolition decision and, instead, to engage in meaningful consultations with the artist and others to find a solution that restores the artwork and develops a long-term, ongoing maintenance plan.
Dear Ms. Baum,
I was profoundly disappointed to hear of the DMAC Board’s decision to destroy an important installation by Mary Miss, the Greenwood Pond: Double Site. Donors become rightly concerned and lose faith when institutions cannot preserve and protect these treasures based on prior gifts. We lost a 50 year old Dan Kiley landscape art installation, the Chestnut Grove, in downtown Milwaukee in 2019. It still leaves a hole in our downtown and in our hearts. Please spare your community from a similar loss and protect Mary Miss’s Greenwood Pond installation. Once these treasures are destroyed, they can never be replaced.
Sincerely,
Julia Taylor
< Back to the Greenwood Pond: Double Site Support Letters Page |
