Sometimes I Sits

Sometimes I Sits
Artist	Michael Helbing
Year	2005
Type	Stainless steel
Location	Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Owner	Indianapolis Art Center

Last updated February 23, 2019

Sometimes I Sits is a public artwork by American artist Michael Helbing. The artwork, created in 2005, is on display at and in the collection of the Indianapolis Art Center, in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States.

Public art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. Public art is significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a working practice of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration. Public art may include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings, but often it is not that simple. Rather, the relationship between the content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom, is just as important if not more important than its physical location.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

The Indianapolis Art Center is an art center located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The Center, founded in 1934 by the Works Project Administration during the Great Depression as the Indianapolis Art League, is located along the White River. It features fine art exhibitions, art classes and studios, a library with over 5,000 titles, and the ARTSPARK nature and art parks. As of 2008 the Indianapolis Art Center featured over 50 annual exhibitions and had over 3,000 members.

Description

The sculpture is made of welded and polished stainless steel.^[1]

In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French inoxydable (inoxidizable), is a steel alloy, with highest percentage contents of iron, chromium, and nickel, with a minimum of 10.5% chromium content by mass and a maximum of 1.2% carbon by mass.

About the artist

Mike Helbing grew up in Indiana and the Midwest. As an artist he worked in Indiana through the 70s and 80s and taught children's art classes at the Art Center when it was still the Indianapolis Art League. In the late 80s he moved to Chicago, Illinois and has worked with large metal sculptures ever since. He also serves as curator of the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum.^[1]

Acquisition

This piece was acquired by the Indianapolis Art Center for its ARTSPARK which brings together art and nature.^[1] In 2005 the piece was on display in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.^[2]

Lincoln Park is a 1,208-acre (489-hectare) park situated along Lake Michigan on North Side in Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue on the south to near Ardmore Avenue on the north, just north of the Lake Shore Drive terminus at Hollywood Avenue. Several museums and a zoo are located between North Avenue and Diversey Parkway in the eponymous neighborhood. Further to the north, the park is characterized by parkland, beaches, recreational areas, nature reserves, and harbors. To the south, there is a more narrow strip of beaches east of Lake Shore Drive, almost to downtown. With 20 million visitors per year, Lincoln Park is the second-most-visited park in the United States.

Information

Sometimes I Sits is a tribute to Helbing's mother, Pat. The sculpture was inspired by a poster that she had that showed an orangutan sitting.^[1] The original title of the piece was Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits. On the piece Helbing states: "It is a place to sit and dream becoming a sculpture that is completed by the participants. It becomes more than the sum of its parts."^[1]

The orangutans are three extant species of great apes native to Indonesia and Malaysia. Orangutans are currently only found in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were originally considered to be one species. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. In November 2017 it was reported that a third species had been identified, the Tapanuli orangutan.

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References

1 2 3 4 5 "ARTSPARK" (PDF). ARTSPARK. Indianapolis Art Center. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 September 2010. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
↑ Jennifer (2005). "Sometimes I sits by Mike Helbing". The Place Where We Live. Retrieved 4 November 2011.

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[ARTSPARKhandout-1] 1 2 3 4 5 "ARTSPARK" (PDF). ARTSPARK. Indianapolis Art Center. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 September 2010. Retrieved 4 April 2010.

[Blog1-2] Jennifer (2005). "Sometimes I sits by Mike Helbing". The Place Where We Live. Retrieved 4 November 2011.