Client: Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI)

Overview

For the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area Bridge Improvement Project the artist used a patterned system of panels to alter the character of an existing highway bridge and to create a significant entry to the Baldwin Hills Nature Conservancy, 100 acres of one of the largest remaining open spaces in Los Angeles. The bridge panels are designed to reflect the ongoing landscape transformation at the Conservancy, as the tensions of recreation and oil production,in the highly disturbed landscape are resolved and ecologies are restored. The open pattern of the panels is a conceptual mapping whose line work merges the broad patterns of disturbance caused by oil infrastructure on the site and the image of the skin of the small Western Fence Lizard, part of its original California coastal sedge ecology. This mapping collapses a small character from the landscape into the broad patterns of disturbance caused by oil extraction on site.

Goals

The art which functionally renovates the bridge, marks a significant entry to the Conservancy, accommodates pedestrian traffic over the bridge, and serves as an iconic presence for all those who pass under the bridge on La Cienega Boulevard.

Process

Cliff Garten Studio's collaboration with all those involved in the project was described as excellent (by the client).