Daedalus (sculpture) facts for kids

Daedalus is a public art work by artist Charles Ginnever, located at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is installed on the lawn in next to the museum, at 525 South State Street.

History

Ginnever created it in 1975, and UMMA purchased and installed it in 1977. Originally, it was in front of UMMA, but when the museum underwent a major renovation in 2008–2009, it was moved to the south lawn of the building, across the street from the University of Michigan Law School.

UMMA's director in the 1970s, Bret Waller, said of the decision to purchase the piece, "We spent over a year surveying the field and looking at sculpture before selecting this piece by Charles Ginnever . . . I felt it was the best piece available for our purposes and recommended it to our executive committee. Daedalus is historically the most significant piece in what appears to be the most important series Ginnever has ever done."

Description

The abstract sculpture is made of Cor-Ten steel. UMMA describes Daedalus's shape as "five parallelograms bent along diagonal lines that lean into each other." The sculpture is about 10 feet tall and 30 feet long. The concave space underneath it is about 11 feet deep.