By: Christine H. O'Toole,
10/29/2009
Just one question for Pittsburgh artist Tim Kaulen: Why birds?
He splays a flat steel goose along a rusty hurricane fence. He stretches a graceful length of black exhaust pipe above a scuffed-up Scott camper for a shape that simultaneously suggests a turkey or a dinosaur. He welds giant plates of steel into gaily-painted sculptures like the ten-foot duck, evoking a Victorian wind-up toy on steroids, which now perches on the lawn of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.
The 43-year-old artist, now being honored at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts as its Artist of the Year, just laughs in response to a query about the avian motif in his work. “It’s not a conscious effort,” he says.
The bird that Kaulen’s work most resembles may be a phoenix, that mythical symbol of rebirth and renewal. Over a 15-year career in Pittsburgh, he’s rescued dozens of artifacts from the region’s industrial past and transformed them into giant urban sculptures. It’s recycling at its grandest, with local companies handing over their gritty two-ton scraps to the artist for free.
The work now being hailed as emblematic of the city’s rebirth began over a decade ago, when Kaulen began work with the Industrial Arts Co-Op. The underground group created artwork in abandoned mills and factories. One of the group‘s most mysterious works still stands at the former U.S. Steel’s Homestead Works: the 30-foot high deer’s head, crafted of steel wire, rises among the long-cold smokestacks. In another Co-op project, a beat-up Scotty camper with a long, birdlike beak mysteriously appeared in front of the august Carnegie Museum of Art as artists converged for the opening of the 1995 Carnegie International exhibit. The work, an ironic welcome to the artists of the prestigious art show, earned the group a flurry of public attention—and a police summons. The smudged yellow carbon copy of a citation (for $40.50) is displayed in Kaulen’s current show at PCA. The group is still in existence, struggling to complete an epic piece to commemorate the steel industry. Originally funded by the city of Pittsburgh, the “architectural-sized” work is slated for placement in a city park when it is eventually completed.
Pieces like “one toy duck,” currently mounted on the lawn of the art center, combine steel, recycled plastic signs and greenery. Kaulen says the simple shapes, blow-torched from scrap metal, are inspired by old tin toys. “It’s somewhat of an experiment and somewhat of a giant risk,” he says. “The duck is extra-bold and extra-silly. I look beyond pipe to characters that stand on their own.”
Before the duck was art, it was a 6,000-pound steel smokestack, languishing by a former brewery on the city’s South Side. Now housing artist lofts and workspaces, the Brew House had removed the 36-foot-high steel cylinder during a past renovation.
“It was supposed to be saved, potentially as an architectural detail,” recalls Kaulen, who worked in a studio at the Brew House at the time. “The new (building) design kind of went away, so the smokestack was just lying beside the building on Mary Street. When I started this project and was in a search for materials, it occurred to me that it would be a great solution for the body panels of those pieces. So it was good it had a new life.”
Kaulen praises the team of young fabricators who spent several hundred hours creating each piece in his new trio of works. On past public artworks, with raw materials and assistance coming from major local construction firms like Massaro, P.J. Dick and Trumbull, Kaulen has forged a group of unlikely alliances.
“Once you find someone willing to get involved, it becomes lively,” he says. When he decided to add greenery to his recent pieces, he sought advice from Bidwell Training Center, where greenhouse experts suggested plants that would be tough enough to survive Pittsburgh winters. Grad students from Chatham University’s landscape architecture program offered technical advice.
Public response to Kaulen’s current show, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” has been enthusiastic. He has two theories on why that’s happened.
“One reason is the economy,” he says. “People are looking at things differently now. The idea of re-use is more accepted.” The Mercer County native also credits the work ethic of his adopted hometown. “It’s an industrious, working-class culture that recognizes other people like themselves.”
Kaulen hopes that his PCA installation will continue to develop into next spring. The pieces he’s dubbed “down and dirty topiary” will have a new identity when warm weather returns. Meanwhile, he’s searching for new ventures. “My work supports me not as a business, but spiritually, in ways that allow me to feel that I contribute. I work to change the landscape of where I live.”
Christine H. O'Toole is Keystone Edge's Innovation and Job News Editor for Western Pennsylvania. Send feedback here.
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Photos:
Tim Kaulen in front of "Iron Horseman"
"Iron Horseman"
"One Toy Duck"
"One Tin Giraffe"
All photographs by Heather Mull