Artwork Detail

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It Leaves

Artist: Merge Conceptual Design

Object Date: 2009

Medium: Acrylic paint on concrete

Imperial Dims: Overall: 1800 in.

Department(s): Public Works

Supervisorial District: 1

About the Artwork:

Artists Claudia Reisenberger and Franka Diehnelt of Merge Conceptual Design designed plant motifs representing the local flora of East Los Angeles including Bird of Paradise and Eucalyptus for the retaining wall around the Rowan Dozier Bus Layover station. The layered patterns created a lace-like quality moving from dense to more open patterns. The artists also applied text fragments from two poems – one from Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda’s book, “The Sea and the Bells,” and the other from Pulitzer winner Stanely Kunitz’s “The Layers.” According to Reisenberger and Diehnelt, both poems convey “life’s meandering ways and meanings in the face of ever-changing nature,” alluding to the artwork’s own temporality. Boston Ivy, planted at the base of the walls, will grow to cover the painted mural, aptly titled It Leaves, within a few years. This artwork is no longer on view.

About the Artist:

Merge Conceptual Design, founded in 2003 and based in Santa Monica, CA, has completed temporary and permanent public art projects for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority and the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Berlin (Germany) and Vienna (Austria). The Merge team includes Claudia Reisenberger and Franka Diehnelt, who are both architecture graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and currently teach at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.