Model for Salina Piece, Dale Eldred

Exhibition Label: "Site Specifics,” Aug-2010, Susan Earle Dale Eldred worked at the intersection of art and science. He had a strong interest in natural phenomena, especially light. The artist and writer Jürgen Claus called him a solar artist, writing that his “optimism and strength were related to the biospheric elements of nature, light, time, and space.” The Salina Piece, for which this is a scale model, is now quite specifically sited on KU’s West Campus. The 35-foot high steel sculpture explores gravity and casts shadows, helping to define earth’s relationship to the sun, as it captures the experience of sunlight reaching the earth. It anticipates works Eldred did beginning in the late 1970s that, according to Claus, “were defined by light reflecting from surfaces.” The environmental quality of Eldred’s work is suggested by SnoWaffle, January 13, 2010, a work of guerrilla sculpture by Matthew Farley that was affectionately installed beneath Eldred’s Salina Piece. Consisting of snow packed to resemble a giant waffle, Farley’s piece turned Eldred’s sculpture into an oversized waffle iron-at least until the snow melted.