Jetty

Jetty, 1980

Barry Tinsley

24^th District Police Station

6464 North Clark Street

            This piece is the first public sculpture installed under the “Percent for Art” program in Chicago, resulting from an amendment to the Municipal Code that required contracts for public buildings to include one percent of the cost of the construction to be set aside for the purchase of artworks to be located at the site. The work is massive, nearly 48 feet long, 14 feet high and 15 feet deep, and is constructed from Cor-Ten steel plates and beams, some welded together and some linked with bolts. The same material as the Picasso in Daley Plaza, Cor-Ten steel tends to withstand weather and human interaction with little intervention.

            Designed specifically for the site between the paved plaza and brick wall of the station, the four-ton sculpture creates a dynamic tension for viewers. Seemingly haphazard in layout with precariously balanced elements, the sculpture offers visually interesting juxtapositions of forms as the eye travels through and the elements are firmly fixed in concrete footings. Tinsley was born in Virginia in 1942, was educated at William and Mary and the University of Iowa, and taught art until 1978, when he moved to Chicago to pursue his own art full time. Other works by Tinsley are on view in Lake Forest and Glencoe.