Client: City of Pico Rivera
Location: Pico Rivera, CA, United States
Completion date: 2013
Artwork budget: $130,000
Project Team
Artist
Rebeca Mendez
Rebeca Méndez Studio
Other
Adam Eeuwens, Research / Project Manager
Rebeca Méndez Studio
Public Art Agent
Letitia Ivins
Los Angeles County Arts Commission
Industry Resource
Chris Grant
Standard Sculpture
Architect
Erik Mar
Cardeten
Overview
Observation Post 1 (2013) is a sculpture by Rebeca Méndez, commissioned by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission for the Pico Rivera Public Library. The artwork is composed of two observations posts, a platform to walk on and a viewing frame, made of Corten Steel, 28 feet long, 8 feet wide, 12 feet high, one inch thick, weighing a total of 9 tons.
Goals
The work encourages the participants to focus their view beyond the frame toward the trees and sky of Pico Rivera, to step through the threshold, let their mind wander, contemplate and daydream. The lintel of the frame has the following quote by Proust from The Captive, vol. 5 of In Search of Lost Time. “The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.” The words have been cut through with water jet, so when one looks up to read the text, one is seeing the sky at the same time.
Process
Invited as prequalified artist by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to respond to a request for qualifications, Rebeca Méndez was selected by a Civic Art committee of stakeholders, that included the Los Angeles County Library, the City of Pico Rivera and the Office of the County Supervisor for the First District. The Los Angeles County Arts Commission acted as the intermediary between the artist, the contractor and the civic institutions. The artist was awarded a project fee of $166,000 with which she made an inside mural of 1,000 square feet printed on canvas, and the outside sculpture ‘Observation Post, No.1.’ Fabrication of the sculpture is by Standard Sculpture, run by Chris Grant, who also installed the art on location.
Additional Information
Link to see more images of the work: http://rebecamendezstudio.com/Observation-Post-1