Red Eye
Owner: City of Kansas City, Missouri
Artist: Gordon Huether
Dates: 2009
Medium: Aluminum, glass, paint
Description:
Limited space for art and having people more interested in leaving the space than viewing art make facilities like parking garages a unique challenge for artists. The artist, Gordon Huether, was chosen by an independent panel from more than 60 artists from across the United States due in part to his experience in addressing this challenge. After a discussion with the building designer, Mr. Huether decided that the best place for art was as an integrated surface on the facade over the public entry point.
Red Eye is mounted over the 11th Street entrance of the parking garage next door to JE Dunn's headquarters. It is a large mural painted on an aluminum panel, measuring 50 feet wide and 15 feet tall. In the middle of the panel is an oval-shaped red window. During the day, this window creates a red sunlit aura inside the garage. At night, the window creates a light show with the headlights of exiting cars for the outside world to view.
“The red ‘eye’ references moving tail lights which, as anyone who’s left a busy parking garage knows, is what you see on the way out,” Huether says. “The giant abstract painting identifies the public portal to the garage and keeps an eye on the inside of the garage and the neighborhood outside.”
Part of the City of Kansas City's One Percent for the Arts Program.
