FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact:
Jill Manton, San Francisco Arts Commission 415-252-2585
Stephanie Stone, California Academy of Sciences 415-379-5121
Robin Wander, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco 415-750-2604

Website: www.sfartscommission.org/pubartcollection
Photos available on request.

Where the Land Meets the Sea , 36’x 60’x 15’, Maya Lin, 2008; photo: Perretti & Park Pictures

Arts Commission Dedicates New Permanent Sculpture by Maya Lin at California Academy of Sciences

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Luis R. Cancel, Director of Cultural Affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission, are pleased to dedicate a new sculpture by Maya Lin entitled Where the Land Meets the Sea at the California Academy of Sciences; it will be a permanent part of the City’s Civic Art Collection. The dedication will take place on Friday, October 24, at 4:00 p.m. on the West Terrace of the California Academy of Sciences.

This is the first permanent artwork by Maya Lin in San Francisco. The artist was selected through the Arts Commission’s competitive application process in 2005. Although Lin does not usually participate in competitions, she responded to the Arts Commission’s invitation to apply because of her keen interest in the California Academy of Sciences and the opportunity the project would provide to engage with the institution’s scientists. As an ardent environmentalist, Lin wished to develop a project that would make people more aware of their environment and the natural world.

The 36’ x 60’ x 15’ sculpture is fabricated from 5/8 inch marine grade stainless steel tubing. Like a line drawing in space, the sculpture depicts the topography between Angel Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. To make the hills and valleys of the terrain more visible, the actual scale of the landscape is exaggerated by five times above sea level and by ten times below. “This piece was the culmination of a quest to reveal San Francisco Bay—to get people to think about what’s beneath the water line in a new way,” says Lin. “It took almost eight months for us to mesh the land and water data sets because the two sets of data were completely segregated—and this is the whole point! We think of these things as two separate systems even though they are literally connected to each other.” In order to build the sculpture, Lin’s fabricator, the Walla Walla Foundry, recreated the exterior West Terrace of the Academy in their warehouse to ensure precision in the attachment of the sculpture to the terrace’s six columns.

The sculpture is installed outdoors on the Academy’s West Terrace, where it is seamlessly attached to six columns and suspended by nine thread-like steel cables from the overhead solar canopy. It seems to float like a cloud in a Chinese landscape painting against the backdrop of greenery in Golden Gate Park, a dynamic counterpoint to the formal and orderly geometry of the building’s architecture by Renzo Piano. Interpretive signage installed on a wall adjacent to the sculpture describes the section of the San Francisco Bay that is depicted in the sculpture. Arts Commission Director Luis Cancel states, “This is one of the most significant works to be acquired by the Arts Commission for the Civic Art Collection in recent years.”

Maya Lin was selected from a candidate pool of 25 artists by a joint committee comprised of representatives from the Academy of Sciences, the Arts Commission, local museum curators and a member of the Music Concourse Citizen’s Advisory Committee. The Committee’s representatives were appointed to oversee the development of the public art program for the Academy of Sciences. Lin was chosen through a rigorous process concluding with an interview with the Advisory Committee. Although the California Academy of Sciences is a private nonprofit institution, its buildings occupy City property and a portion of the construction cost of the new building was funded with General Obligation Bonds. For this reason, the City’s Art Enrichment Ordinance was applicable and provided the funding for the project.

For a limited time, this is an unprecedented opportunity to view Maya Lin’s work on both sides of the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park. The sculpture dedication on Friday, October 24th, is concurrent with the opening of her show entitled Systematic Landscapes at the de Young Museum. Following the 4:00 p.m. dedication ceremony at the Academy, visitors are invited to walk across the Music Concourse to the de Young to join Lin at a public reception for Systematic Landscapes. Lin’s extraordinary ability to convey complex and poetic ideas using simple forms and natural materials is fully evident in Systematic Landscapes. This exhibition offers a rich, immersive experience for viewers that brings a sensory understanding of Lin’s outdoor works inside. Visitors to the de Young exhibition will have the opportunity to view the development and evolution of her work for the California Academy of Sciences where her numerous renderings, small-scale models and maquettes for Where the Land Meets the Sea will be displayed. Where the Land Meets the Sea is Lin’s third sculpture in a series of wire landscapes, and the only one that is permanently installed outdoors. The two other landscapes in the series include Water Line (2006), an aluminum sculpture that represents a location just north of Antarctica, and Above and Below (2007), a 100-foot-long aluminum sculpture permanently installed at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Lin’s other recent work includes Pin River-Yangtze, an installation of 30,000 straight pins representing the topography of the Yangtze River, in the new American Embassy in Beijing, which opened in August, 2008; and the Confluence Project, which was initiated in 2000 and consists of seven art installations along the Columbia River Basin commemorating the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Lin is also completing a four-acre earthwork at Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, N.Y., one of a series of wave fields sculpted from grass, sand and soil. Lin was awarded the New York Prize Senior Fellowship by the Van Alen Institute in August, 2008, to pursue advanced research and experimentation in the field of public architecture.

The mission of the Academy to explore, explain and protect the natural world parallels the artist’s own passionate commitment to save the Earth and its natural phenomena. A second artwork by Maya Lin planned for the Academy is entitled What is Missing? The artwork will highlight the present loss in biodiversity and species that is occurring throughout the world as it elucidates the critically endangered habitats that these species need to survive. As the fifth and final of her memorial artworks that respond to the cultural and historical issues of our time, the project at the California Academy of Sciences focuses on Lin’s long standing commitment to the environment. What is Missing? will be unveiled at the California Academy of Sciences on Earth Day 2009. As a monument that is translated into different sites and formats, future iterations of the work may exist as unique sound and media installations at other institutions, on the web and as a book.

Along with the California Academy of Sciences, the artist has also worked with other institutions and environmental groups in the development of What is Missing? such as The American Museum of Natural History, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology , IUCN, The National Geographic Society, Conservation International, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund, NRDC, Oceana, Panthera and the Van Alen Institute.

Established by charter in 1932, the San Francisco Arts Commission (“SFAC”) is the City agency that champions the arts in San Francisco. We believe that a creative cultural environment is essential to the City’s well-being. SFAC programs integrate the arts into all aspects of City life. Programs include: Civic Art Collection, Civic Design Review, Community Arts & Education, Cultural Equity Grants, Public Art, SFAC Gallery, Street Artists Licensing, Summer in the City Concert Series.