Denver has its blue skies, blue moons and even blue Qwest signs. And soon it will be home to a giant blue bear.
At 9:35 a.m. Tuesday, the first of four flatbed tractor-trailers carrying the six sections of a 40-foot-tall bear sculpture pulled up to Stout and 14th streets outside the Colorado Convention Center.
Unloading of the left leg section began minutes later. Full assembly and installation of the $424,400 piece on the east side of the center is expected to be completed by Thursday.
“It’s great,” said Denver artist Lawrence Argent, who was all smiles. “This is an elation. The piece has been on the drawing board for three years, so it’s nice to see the end of that, or almost the end of that.
“But also, it’s a wonderful experience to be able to put into the public view something that I’ve created in this way.”
Titled “I See What You Mean,” the sculpture depicts a bruin peering mischievously into one of the convention center’s windows.
“It’s probably the most playful piece in the (city’s) collection,” said John Grant, director of Denver’s public-art program. “It’s probably the most accessible piece to the majority of people who are going to be looking at it.
“It addresses kids’ fancy as well as larger issues of contemporary art,” Grant said. “So it fits in well. And like I said before, we don’t have one of these.”
Argent conceived the work, which was fabricated by Kreysler & Associates in American Canyon, Calif. The firm has done work for such famed sculptors as Robert Graham and the husband-and-wife team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.
The bear sculpture was commissioned through Denver’s 1-percent-for-art ordinance, which was passed in 1991. It requires that 1 percent of the budgets for all public projects of $1 million or more be set aside for art purchases.
Following those guidelines, more than $2.4 million in art will ultimately adorn the interior and exterior of the recently expanded Colorado Convention Center.
Argent said the bear’s form derives as much from mathematical calculations as artistic inspiration. Rather than a smooth exterior, its “faceted” surface, as he describes it, is composed of 4,000 interlocking triangles.
The 10,000-pound piece was constructed of molded polymer concrete mounted on an interior steel framework. For transportation, it was split into six sections that workers are reassembling at the site.
The bear’s color is pure happenstance. Argent made a three-dimensional printout of the first prototype on a plastic material that happened to be blue. The more he looked at it, the more he liked the color.
“I investigated further,” he said, “and I started to realize that there is a lot about Colorado that is blue.”
The bear and the other art at the convention center will be dedicated July 21.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at kmacmillan@denverpost.com or 303-820-1675.
