Burns Sculpture Park: Temporary Concrete Lost to Time

Part of the Denver Public Art Collection

Colorado Avenue, Leetsdale Drive, and East Alameda Avenue, Denver, CO 80246

1968-the present

Admission: free

by Mary Grace (MG) Bernard

Burns Park is a public sculpture park trapped between Colorado Avenue, Leetsdale Drive, and East Alameda Avenue in Denver. These days, it’s really nothing to look at; the park is more like an inaccessible patch of grass with five giant sculptures plopped onto it. [1] The only pedestrian routes are along the park’s south and west edges (along Colorado Avenue and Alameda Avenue respectively). With the three major streets lining the edges, visitor access into the park is limited to just a few crossings at the corners and a small parking lot.

Angelo Di Benedetto, *Untitled*, 1968, painted concrete. Image by *DARIA*.

Wilbert Verhelst, *Untitled*, 1968, paint on wood and fiberglass. Image by *DARIA*.

The park lacks design, an inviting atmosphere for its visitors, and provides no information for its purpose within the community. However, the site has an interesting history tied to Denver’s contemporary public art scene. In 1968, ten artists joined forces to hold the first ever Denver Sculpture Symposium at Burns Park to activate the park and invited community members to be part of the collective construction of large-scale artworks. [2] After three months of building, nine monolithic, minimalist sculptures stood tall. Like an outdoor version of a museum exhibition, the artists’ constructed the sculptures with the idea that they would be on view temporarily.

Barbara Baer, *Jazz*, 1999, painted steel. Image by *DARIA*.

The artists told news reporters that they used cheap, unsustainable materials to deliberately create works that invite viewers to touch them, step on them, walk into and onto them, and in general actively enjoy them. [3] However, because the Symposium was such a popular and public success, the community convinced the city to make them permanent. Six out of the nine sculptures were preserved; and today, only three remain, with the addition of two steel sculptures that were added later.

Anthony Magar, *Untitled*, 1968, painted steel. Image by *DARIA*.

Anthony Magar, *Untitled* *(Dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr.)*, 1968, paint on wood and fiberglass. Image by *DARIA*.

In 2014, Denver Arts and Venues, in partnership with Denver Parks and Recreation, conceived of a Burns Park Master Plan to revitalize the sculpture park into a recreational area that is more visitor friendly, protects the current public sculptures, and enhances the park’s design concept. Almost ten years later, however, due to lack of funds, the sculpture park remains lost to time.

Mary Grace Bernard (MG, she/her) is a transmedia and performance artist, educator, advocate, and crip witch. Her practice finds itself at the intersection of performance art, transmedia installation art, art scholarship, art writing, curation, and activism.

[1] In the 1960s, when the National Endowment for the Arts launched its art-in-public-places program, public sculptures quickly came to be known as “plop art”—big sculptural objects by a renowned artist placed into a specific public place. For more information on “plop art,” see Arlene Raven, Art in the Public Interest (New York: Da Capo Press, 1993) and Susan Freedman, Plop: Recent Projects of the Public Art Fund (New York: Merrell Publishers in association with Public Art Fund, New York, 2004).

[2] The nine artists were Angelo Di Benedetto, Dean Fleming, Peter Forakis, Roger Kotoske, Anthony Magar, Robert Mangold, Robert Morris, Richard Van Buren, and Wilbert Verhelst, with the help of painter and University of Denver art professor Beverly Rosen. At the time, it was only the second sculpture symposium of its kind to be held in the United States. The artists built the sculptures in situ at Burns Park.

[3] ——. 1970. “Art in the Park.” The American City Magazine, February 1970: 76-77.