Oakland, CA–October 16, 2009. Mills College art professor Catherine Wagner will debut Ghost Grove, a new public art project for the city of Los Angeles. The laser etched aluminum installation with orange-colored mylar circles, is located in the Ronald F. Deaton Civic Auditorium, a part of the new Los Angeles Police Department’s downtown headquarters.

Los Angeles mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa will speak at its public grand opening on Oct. 24. President Barack Obama is also an invited speaker. The celebration is from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm with tours of the building, food, and entertainment. All members of the public are invited.

Wagner won the $500,000 commission in a 2006 public arts competition hosted by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The project honors downtown Los Angeles in the late 19th century, when citrus groves flourished in the area. Wagner’s inspiration came from a tour of the downtown, where she spotted a lone citrus descendent in the plaza of the Japanese-American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo. It is a part of the original orange groves that once extended from downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena.

“I was moved by the single remaining citrus tree,” she said. “It continues to thrive despite the urban growth that has sprung up around it.”

Wagner photographed a series of orange groves in Ojai that were then laser etched into orange anodized aluminum.

Felicia Filer, director of the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affair’s public art program praised Wagner’s project.

“The color of her work demands that you look, it is so provocative,” she said. “It warms up the space and addresses the pedestrian experience.”

The three-year project has three parts, each providing a tactile, visual, and spatial experience. The installation begins at the plaza entrance with a sandblasted image of a lone orange tree on limestone. Next, a series of aluminum panels of varying dimensions of approximately 8 feet by 155 feet are embedded into the walls, wrapping three sides of the auditorium and becoming a part of the internal skin of the building.

“The laser-etch panels create a beautiful ghost-like image of the trees that can be seen from both the exterior plaza and while traveling to and from the auditorium,” Wagner said. At night the lighting illuminates the panels and the etching of the orange groves appears to float off the wall.

Finally, another series of semitransparent orange mylar circles appear on the exterior windows, creating the illusion of falling oranges and depending on the time of day, the sun casts their moving shadows onto the floor and walls of the corridor.

“Since this auditorium will be used not only for LAPD events but for events relating to the community at large, this piece seeks to extend the idea of the public park and plaza by referencing an extended notion of landscape, and to provide both a beautiful and interactive environment,” said Wagner.

Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering a dynamic progressive education that fosters leadership, social responsibility, and creativity to approximately 950 undergraduate women and 550 graduate women and men. Since 2000, applications to Mills College have more than doubled. The College is named one of the top colleges in the West by U.S. News & World Report, and ranks as one of the Best 371 Colleges by the Princeton Review. Forbes.com ranked Mills 55th among America's best colleges and named it a "Top Ten: Best of the All-Women's Colleges." Visit us at www.mills.edu.

Photo credit: Phil Bond

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