House Divided 02 -- CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

The image of the lone artist toiling away at his or her masterpiece is a persistent one. But, especially in the case of large scale public sculpture, it often takes a village to bring a work of art to life. At first I was startled when I came across this series of photos from the Governors State University Sculpture Photographs Collection. I live just a mile or so up the road from Governors State, so not only have I been fortunate to visit the fabulous Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park on more than one occasion, but I have driven past Bruce Nauman’s “House Divided” sculpture a hundred times or more as it is one of the few pieces easily visible from the road bordering the university.

I was startled because, I, too, had this fanciful image of artist Bruce Nauman personally building this concrete structure on the grounds of the park. These photographs, however, blew away my misconceptions about the relationship between artists and some of their works. In this series of photos, we see it took a team of skilled workers to build “House Divided” and pour the cast concrete.

Does this somehow lessen my appreciation of the work? Absolutely not. Instead, it makes me look at other public sculptures with new eyes. I no longer see a “lone creative genius” at work. Now I also see the steel workers, welders, bronze casters, and countless others whose skills bring an artist’s vision to life.

Written by Alice Creason, Head of Library Technology & Technical Services at Lewis University

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