ArtsWatch

Local artist Winifred Lutz has put the final stroke on her summer-long project in Independence National Historical Park. Evoking the creek that once ran through this part of town, Lutz and a group of assistants have installed something like 17,000 feet of blue plastic cord over the grassy swale (now there's a word we urbanites don't get to use much).
I'm no art critic, but I have a couple of observations about this surprising piece of environmental art.
First, Lutz has arranged the bands so that they form a kind of large-scale lenticular. If you look at the installation from the side, or if the light is particularly bright, you can clearly see the grass underneath and the bands of synthetic material over them. But viewed from the front (that is, looking east) on in less bright light the individual bands merge and form a surface that looks very much like water.
Second, in a way, what Lutz has done is an act of the anti-Christo. Rather than imposing conspicuously man-made materials and colors (shocking pink hugging islands!) on a natural setting, Lutz has used man-made materials to make something seem more natural. Before this project no one might have guessed this was once a creek in the middle of a city.
The installation is up through Sept. 27. Materials explaining the project and the history of Dock Creek are available at the American Philosophical Society, which commissioned the piece.
(Photo: Frank Margeson)