Location: Government Plaza Station
Title: Local Connections: Minneapolis Views and Visions of Democracy
Artist: Keith Christensen
Material: Granite, enameled glass mounted on steel
Two granite columns with carved inscriptions and low-relief images of gloves, also printed images of gloves (with text) and maps on four nearby light-rail shelters consisting of eight two-sided panels made of enameled glass mounted on steel.
Low-relief pre-cast concrete panels
Carved granite locomotive drive wheel
Bronze of stacked wheel and rim shapes
Located between Minneapolis City Hall and the Hennepin County Government Building, this public art explores participatory democracy and how people connect with one another and their government. It is comprised of two-dimensional images on windscreens and two granite columns at each end of the eastbound platform. The two-dimensional images are of different types of work gloves and contemporary and historic aerial views of different neighborhoods of Minneapolis. The gloves are a metaphor of a diverse population and that democracy is a work in progress. The gloves were solicited from the residents and workers in the community. The aerial images allow the viewer to see the city from a distance and so implies an understanding of how local activities fit into a larger scale. Both the two-dimensional images and the columns have phrases pertaining to civic engagement and living in community. The phrases were collected from residents and are responses to the query "how do you see democracy?" The phrases are translated into five languages commonly found in Minneapolis: English, Spanish, Somali, Hmong and Ojibway.
Keith Christensen is a graphic designer, public artist and professor at St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota.
He has exhibited his artwork locally and internationally with public works in the United States and exhibits in galleries and museums in the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland. His graphic design and illustration clients include ArtNews, Public Art Review and Monthly Review Press.
He was a Forecast Public Art Project Grant recipient and a finalist for a McKnight Project Grant. His work is in the collections of the National Museum in Poznan, Poland and The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC.
Here are some images from the making of the granite columns.
Granite block from the quarry
Polished and drilled granite blocks
Wet-sawing the dome
Creating the inset for the medallions.
Polished and drilled granite blocks
Lettering masks
Completed lettering and map medallion