Search Results: Public Art Field Trip

At the corner of Lombard and Gay streets in downtown Baltimore is the Baltimore Holocaust Memorial. Having driven by it many times, we decided to stop and investigate the installation and do a little research about this memorial.

From the Monument City blog:

One of the more ominous spots in the city, the Holocaust Memorial sits just a few blocks north of the Aquarium and takes up an entire city block. In the 1970s a ninth grade Baltimore Hebrew class told their teacher, Alvin Fisher, they didn’t believe the Holocaust occurred. Mr. Fisher promptly took a proposal for a memorial to Charm City’s Jewish Counsel, hoping to erase the unfortunate misconception. They granted his wish and the site was chosen, an area downtown owned by the Baltimore City Community College.

The memorial consists of a monolith resembling a train with a   steel gate symbolizing the internment of Jews in concentration camps. On the ground leading up to the large structure is a series of railroad tracks, tall grass growing from between the rails. At the southern end of the park a statue was erected, in 1988, that has since become the center-piece of the memorial.

Two Baltimore businessmen and philanthropists, Melvin Berger and Jack Luskin, donated funds for the monumental flame. Dedicated in memory of the Night of Broken Glass, the 1938 destruction of Jewish homes, communities and synagogues by the Nazis, the sculpture is the creation of artist Joseph Sheppard and displays the bodies of victims engulfed in fire. Sheppard also sculpted the Pope John Paul II statue near the Basilica of the Assumption.

It was constructed in 1980 at a cost of $300,000 and consisted of a grassy mound and two 80 foot blocks of  concrete. The stark scene became a haven for the city’s homeless and a plan to re-design the area was presented in 1995. Architect Jonathan Fishman was commissioned to create the empty rail yard that exists today. A plaque, it’s inscription written by author Deborah Lipstadt, was dedicated in 1997 upon completion of the project. Several Holocaust survivors attended the ceremony.

Tenchi Nage (Heaven and Earth Throw), 1996 by Rodney Carroll

Illustration by Precious Blake

Fifteen sculptors from across the country who were alumni of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) were invited to create new works of art for an Artscpae exhibition planned by the city for the summer of 1996 to mark the centennial of the founding of that graduate program. This  sculpture by Rodney Carroll(’83) was one of the pieces commissioned for that exhibition, Celebrating Rinehart, and is one of five that has remained on site.

Carroll’s choice of this site determined the scale of this piece. Most of Carroll’s sculptures of the time had a verticality that would not have worked in front of MICA’s Main Building on Mount Royal Avenue. So, Carroll began a new series of sculptures that would deal with the dynamic relationship between teo people and two elements. For inspiration he turned to Aikido, a Japancese martial art that focuses on using one’s own energy to gain control of an opponent in order to throw that opponent away from oneself, but to never permaently harm him or her. Tenchi Nage is one such throw. Literally translated as ” Heaven and Earth Throw.” It was so named because during the throw, one hand travels upward toward the heavens while the other hand travels downward toward the earth.

Here the  arcing element in the front represents the figure that is lifting and throwing his opponent, who is represented by the figure behind it. The energy exerted between the two elements, or opponents, is represented by the central curving tubular form. The three elements are bolted together and mounted on a circular concrete base. When the piece was first installed, the uncoated steel had a silver color, which today has weathered to a rich reddish brown.