Spillover II

Year2010

TypeWelded openwork steel sculpture

Dimensions260 cm (102 in)

Spillover


Artist	Jaume Plensa
Year	2010 (2010)
Type	Welded openwork steel sculpture
Dimensions	260 cm (102 in)
Location	Shorewood, Wisconsin, US
Coordinates	43°05′21.90″N 87°52′25.73″W / 43.0894167°N 87.8738139°W / 43.0894167; -87.8738139
Owner	Village of Shorewood

Spillover is a public artwork by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. It is installed in Atwater Park in Shorewood, Wisconsin, United States. It depicts an 8.5-foot (2.6 m) crouching man whose open form is made of steel letters. It is on a 2-foot (0.61 m) concrete base, and was publicly dedicated on September 21, 2010.^[1]

Spillover is composed of steel letters that are tack welded together. In Plensa's words, "The letters that form the open framework suggest that language is our primary tool for experiencing the world and each other, and that we are, essentially, both limited and empowered by this abstract means of translating our experiences."^[1] The work, on a concrete base at the intersection of Capitol Drive and Lake Drive, is situated with the figure looking out onto Lake Michigan. Illuminated from within, its nighttime glow acts like a beacon in Atwater Park.^[2]

History

Spillover is the first artwork acquired as part of the Village of Shorewood's public art initiative,^[1] begun in 2001 by the Shorewood Public Art Committee, a subcommittee of the Community Development Authority and Public Improvements Committee.^[3] Russell Bowman, former director of the Milwaukee Art Museum and current Chicago art consultant, assisted the committee in choosing Plensa's work. Plensa is best known in the American Midwest for his Crown Fountain in Chicago's Millennium Park.

Spillover was chosen from nearly 100 other artists' works because it seemed the most appropriate for the location. Shorewood Village president Guy Johnson described it as a "wonderful gift (that) has given us an unprecedented and extraordinary opportunity to enhance the quality of life for the citizens of Shorewood".^[3]

Jaume Plensa was present at the sculpture's dedication in September 2010. He thanked Shorewood for giving one of his "children" a beautiful home, and expressed satisfaction that his artwork was placed near Lake Michigan, where it could engage in a dialogue with its site. "One can see the influences of northern Spain of Plensa's aesthetic," wrote Debra Brehmer in the Wisconsin Gazette. "Like his fellow countrymen, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Antoni Gaudi, and Joan Miró, there is a playful humanism and a commitment to biomorphic, inventive form infused with an unabashed romanticism."^[2]

The work investigates the connection between art and nature while also referencing the letter as the original component of poetry.^[4]^[5] It has also been suggested that this paradoxical sculpture, which appears both transparent and solid, implies that "we are hollow men".^[5] Visitors to the park are often observed interacting with the sculpture, apparently feeling a connection to its human form, and enjoying how the form changes as one walks around it.^[2]

Acquisition

The acquisition of Spillover was primarily enabled by an anonymous $350,000 contribution.^[2] It was additionally supported by the Shorewood Foundation, Shorewood Men's Club, Village of Shorewood Marketing Program, and the Village of Shorewood.^[1]

v t e Jaume Plensa
Sculptures	Crown Fountain (2004) Breathing (2008) Dream (2009) Spillover II (2010) Alchemist (2011) Echo (2011) Tolerance (2011) Looking Into My Dreams, Awilda (2012) Mirall (2015) Behind the Walls (2018) Dreaming (2020) Water's Soul (2020)
Related	La Fura dels Baus (designer)

v t e Public art in Milwaukee
Downtown	The Victorious Charge Family The Calling Wisconsin Workers Memorial Wind Leaves Birds of Knowledge of Good and Evil The Great Double Woodland Indian and Whistling Swans Solomon Juneau Leif, the Discoverer Letter Carriers' Monument Argo Bronze Fonz Walkways Through the Wall Abraham Lincoln George Washington Referee Immigrant Mother King Gambrinus RiverSculpture! Gertie the Duck General Douglas MacArthur The Spirit of Polonia World War I Memorial Flagpole Pedestrian Drama Midsummer Carnival Shaft Acqua Grylli Laureate Diana Trigon Pere Jacques Marquette Spanish–American War Soldier Ruins X Ex Stasis City Yard Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Peter John A Beam of Sun to Shake the Sky Rainbow Machine Topiary Lucere Dancing Through Life Mother Teresa Monument Jacques Marquette You Rise Above the World The Last Alarm John Plankinton
North Side	Celebrating the Arts Christian Wahl Elk On Watch Pattern Lapham Memorial Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Music Fishing Spirit of the Firefighter Dauntless Guardian Buildings 1992 Gear 23 All in the Air at Once First Flight Sea of the Ear Kindred Ties
East Side	Cleopatra's Wedge Float Polyphony Boy with Goose Eight Stone Lions Three Bronze Discs Holocaust Memorial Happy-Go-Luckies of Nature and Technology Blue Dress Park Sentinels Hermes Milwaukee Eclipse 'X' Intertwining Compass Erastus B. Wolcott Sharing the Load Robert Burns Near Here Compass Walk Like a River Spillover II Tip Jantar-Mantar Cass Street Park Brady Street Beasts Connect
South Side	Menomonee Count Casimir Pulaski Spirit of Commerce Bay View Series A Place to Sit Stratiformis The Hill Climber Deflected Jets Angel in a Cage R. D. Whitehead Monument Memorial for Belle Austin Jacobs T. A. Chapman Memorial Nature Belle Oops, Missed Space Game Engine Company No. 10 William A. Starke Memorial Steel Reborn Red Flower Rising Equestrian statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko Patrick Cudahy Memorial SOARING Two Opposites Reaching Up Toward the Peak of Progress Edge Elements Ribbons VI Bridge Stone Bracelet Untitled Quartet Tending the Fire Bird and Fish The Sower The Reaper Giving Gifts Watertower
West Side	Henry Bergh Goethe–Schiller Monument Chrysalis The Ideal Scout Uptown Triangles Tree of Life Magic Grove Steuben Monument Kneeling Camels Teamwork Aaron Monument Yount Monument Selig Monument Uecker Monument Fire and Water Vliet Street Commons Miller Valley Veterans Monument Children of the West End
Lynden Sculpture Garden	Sinai Wandering Rocks Sea Form (Atlantic) Sky Fence Floating Sculpture No. 3 Mo, Ni, Que Trio Two-Piece Reclining Figure No. 9 Way Four Compound Junior Salem No. 7 Bremen Town Musicians Ancestor Queen of Sheba Rhythm in Space Peristyle, Three Lines Orizzontale Embrace Ursa Major Three Graces Large Torso, Arch Double Up Upstart The Lovers (di Suvero) Poland Axeltree Orbits Ritual II Hara Olympus The Lovers (Daen) Tensione No. 2 The Source Rainbow Unfolding Vegetative Sculpture I Round About Lodgepole Twist for Max Bench-Stone Windfall Knife Tree Conversations with Magic Stones, Figure Three Conversations with Magic Stones (Magic Stone Three) Kumo Untitled Arch Epicenter Epicenter II III Columns Flight Pin Oak I
Mobile projects	Overpass Light Brigade

History

Acquisition

Allegations of anti-Semitic content

References

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