The people’s art

LITTLE ROCK — Amid the knickknacks and artworks in the midtown medical office of Dean Kumpuris is a small, bright painting of a dog’s face. And if you’ve strolled through the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden in Little Rock’s Riverfront Park, you may recognize it from one of the sculptures there.

The dog captured in pigments and bronze is Boris, Kumpuris’ French bulldog.

Kumpuris - a gastroenterologist who is also a Little Rock city director - has a thing for public art and figures sculpture is the ideal form. Little Rock doesn’t have the right buildings for epic murals, he notes, plus they require extensive upkeep, and mosaics don’t capture the imagination in quite the same way.

“It’s fun to look at, but if you’re a visitor to the city you aren’t going to say, ‘I remember Little Rock because of this thing,’” he said.

So he set his sights on three dimensional art and founded the nonprofit Sculpture at the River Market, which will hold its annual show and sale in its namesake facility this weekend, with a preview party and after party Friday and the show and sale Saturday and Oct. 21. The event raises money to buy more art that’s meant to be ogled, fondled, admired and remembered by ... well, basically everybody.

“It brings people together,” Kumpuris said of public art.

This year’s juried show will feature 44 artists, selected from between 80 and 90 who applied.

While there are many repeat exhibitors, Kumpuris said there are also artists showing for the first time.

Among the participants are Ed Pennebaker of Green Forest, Margaret Warren of Shirley, Bruce Niemi of Kenosha, Wis., and Denny Haskew of Loveland, Colo.

“It has turned out to be a fun event for the public,”he said. “We start out with a preview night, but the next two days are free and open to the public.”

This year’s opening night will have a new twist. At 8:30, what Kumpuris called “the old people’s party” will wind up, the music will get more energetic, wine and beer will be served and Hot Dog Mike will be on hand to feed what organizers hope is a younger crowd.

“[It’s] so that we can start getting younger people interested in sculpture and what’s going on downtown and why that’s important,” Kumpuris said.

The nonprofit Sculpture at the River Market Inc. takes a commission from each sale and uses proceeds from the show to give prizes to exhibitors and also to buy additional “monumental art” for the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden. This year, Kumpuris anticipates spending between $30,000 and $40,000 to expand the collection. That includes a purchase award for one artist whose work is selected by jurists from drawings submitted before the show; a public vote on those drawings during this year’s show will determine the finalists.

When you include pieces bought by Little Rock City Beautiful and private donors this year, a total of six new pieces of monumental sculpture will be installed in the park by winter, Kumpuris said.

“It gives people the opportunity to come and see these sorts of things free. You can now come and walk around the park and see some really great pieces of art,” he said. “With the initial pieces we put in for the opening of the Clinton library, if you look at the total pieces it’s $2 million worth of art down there. And that’s a pretty remarkable thing for no one to know about.”

WHERE’S ARKANSAS ART?

Not exactly no one.

Some of the people who noticed the sculptures going in were Arkansas artists, none of whose work had been bought for that initial phase. Many of the artists selected had ties to Loveland, home to the National Sculptors’ Guild, whose director John Kinkade consulted on the project with Kumpuris. One local weekly described that organization’s influence on public art in Little Rock as a near-monopoly, thanks to Kumpuris’ work with the group.

Open criticism is harder to find today, although state artists have their own partisans in groups like the Arkansas Sculptors Guild, whose own show has a couple of years on Sculpture at the River Market. The guild’s eighth annual exhibit will be held June 21 at the Argenta Community Theater in North Little Rock and only Arkansans are eligible to submit entries.

“Our goal is to find commissions and placement and help our sculptors who live in our state and pay taxes in our state, to help them make sure their endeavors are viable,” said guild president David Harris of Little Rock. “To help them make sure they can make a living in Arkansas.”

Harris said there had initially been an attempt at collaboration with the River Market show, but the two groups ultimately parted ways.

“We basically, originally were trying to work with them on doing a sculpture show and it just didn’t pan out,” he said. “You get too many chiefs and not enough Indians, you know how that goes. So we just endeavored to keep our show separate.”

And the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden?

“I can’t really comment on that. I don’t have anything to do with it or any say-so over it,” Harris said, though he added, “We would like to see more Arkansas sculptors represented in there.”

“This isn’t about politics as much as it is about supporting what we have here in our own state,” said his wife, Bre Harris, also a sculptor.

Kumpuris acknowledged there had been some criticism of the sculpture garden initially and said several Arkansas artists are now represented among the 50 or so pieces there, a trend he expects to continue.

“That is a valid criticism; it certainly is the point of view of some people,” he said. “What I’m hoping happens by doing this is it makes Arkansas artists more competitive ... so that they are in the show more and they are participating more and it brings more artists to Arkansas.”

Among the state artists whose work is represented in the sculpture garden are University of Arkansas at Little Rock sculpture professor Michael Warrick of Little Rock (“He’s one of only two people with two pieces in there,” Kumpuris noted), Shelley Buonaiuto of Fayetteville and University of Central Arkansas in Conway art professor Brian Massey, the other artist with two sculptures in the park.

Another Arkansas artist who has been commissioned to create a piece is Kevin Kresse of Little Rock.

“It’s basically due to the good will and benevolence of Lisenne Rockefeller; it was her idea,” Kresse said. “I did the first few shows, maybe the first three shows, and I’d be doing it again.”

Kresse said he was aware of the criticism that had been leveled at the sculpture garden early on and understood the frustration of Arkansas artists, but said these days he tries to take the longer view that public art can only be good for the city. Revitalization along South Main Street in Little Rock and in North Little Rock’s downtown Argenta Arts District were hopeful signs, he said, and the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden should be seen as part of the riverfront revitalization, as well.

“It’s one of those things where I think the more art, the better,” he said. “People can see that this is an important part of daily life when they are exposed to good artwork, just like good architecture.”

That’s a mindset that Kumpuris shares.

“The sculpture helps set the tone of it’s a fun and interesting place,” Kumpuris said. “It gives you the feeling that someone cares. It just says who we are.”

Sculpture at the River Market

Preview party, 6:30 p.m. Friday, River Market pavilions, cocktail buffet. Tickets: $100, includes after-party

Bronze and Brewskis, 8:30 p.m. Friday, River Market pavilions, $20 in advance, $25 at the door.Tickets for both parties at sculptureattherivermarket.com or (501) 664-1919

Show and sale, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Oct. 21, River Market Pavilion, free admission. “Sculpture in the Garden” lecture by Janet Carson, 1 p.m. Oct. 21

Info:

sculptureattherivermarket.com