Artists will enhance campus

Two Southland-based artists, Lita Albuquerque and Michael C. McMillen, will create ephemeral works on campus as part of Caltech’s contribution to a citywide festival celebrating the arts, science, music, and history.

The artwork will also fulfill the city of Pasadena’s Art in Public Places requirement, which stipulates that one percent of the construction costs of certain academic and administrative buildings be dedicated to public art. Caltech has been attempting to meet the requirement for the Broad Center for the Biological Sciences, which opened in September 2002.

Albuquerque and McMillen will discuss their work at a presentation, open to the campus community, on Tuesday, February 24, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Beckman Institute auditorium. Both artists view their projects as collaborations with Caltech students, faculty, and staff, and look forward to feedback in developing art for and about the Institute.

Albuquerque is a leading artist who is linked with the California Light and Space tradition. In the last decade, she has focused on ephemeral, site-specific earth installations, particularly in the desert. The recipient of numerous awards, her work is included at such museums as the Smithsonian Institution, the Whitney Museum of Art, and the Getty Trust. She has created dozens of public art projects and commissions in Southern California and internationally.

At Caltech, Albuquerque hopes to engage her fascination with astronomy, the earth, and the relationship between human curiosity and the great questions of science. Working with Institute researchers and facilities, she will further refine the concept for her artwork. Possible sites include Throop Memorial Garden lawn, the lawn between Thomas and Guggenheim Labs, the Beckman Institute lawn, and the Avery House lawn at Holliston and Del Mar.

Since 1973, McMillen has been bringing viewers directly into the art experience through mixed-media installation pieces such as The Central Meridian, currently on loan at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Red Trailer Motel, at the L.A. Louver Gallery in Venice through March 21. McMillen is attracted to the castoffs of material society, incorporating them in his search to find a visual and spiritual poetry.

Excited and challenged by the Caltech project, he is looking to create an interactive piece that engages the Institute’s rich intellectual and material history. He also will work with researchers as, using cast-off materials from the campus, he attempts to capture the conceptions of nature as conveyed in art and science, and the relationship between humanity and the environment. Sites under consideration include areas near Watson Lab, Noyes Lab, Steele Lab, and Powell-Booth and Keck Labs.

The artwork, which will be on display for six to 12 months, will further an ongoing collaboration between Caltech and the Art Center School of Design’s Williamson Gallery. The two institutions are joining forces to produce site-specific works on both campuses as part of their participation in the Tender Land, a Pasadena cultural festival set for October.
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