Cities: Departure and Deviation (five sites)
Artist
Norwood Viviano
(American, born 1972)
Date2012
MediumBlown glass and vinyl cut drawings
Dimensions25 1/4 × 56 1/2 × 18 in. (64.1 × 143.5 × 45.7 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of the artist, 2019
Object numberUAC6688
DescriptionNorwood Vivianoʼs pristine, elegant queue of conical glass sculptures, paired with digital renderings of working plans, presents a suite of five drawn from his ongoing series Cities: Departure and Deviation. Suspended by nearly invisible metal cables, the black, white, and gray forms resemble spinning tops, each identified with a city, ranging from Chicago to Toronto. The accompanying graphics map urban population shifts, dating from early settlement to 2010, as civic centers accelerate and decelerate, adding or subtracting inhabitants for myriad reasons. In this display, research statistics document that both Detroit (no surprise) and Chicago (surprise) have experienced population decline, while others in the lineup, New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto, have recorded increases. Such deviations are visually manifested in black and white contrasts: a white bottom denotes growth, and black a decrease. Each sculpture is handmade by the artist, the converse halves blown separately and afterward joined together. Viviano, who studied at Alfred University (BFA) and Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA)-he is presently associate professor of sculpture at Grand Valley State University-combines traditional craft materials, glass primarily, and contemporary data research to reveal the change and flux, often obscured, that lies beneath the public aura (positive or negative) of municipalities. Reared in Detroit in the 1970s and 80s, a time in the cityʼs life that was rife with volatile economic, industrial, and population dynamics, Viviano originally focused on Michigan communities, but subsequently in his Cities series expanded to national and international sites.
Text by Dennis Alan Nawrocki
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