Court Temporarily Halts Dismantling of Seminal Mary Miss Land Art Installation

A US federal judge on Monday issued a temporary restraining order against the Des Moines Art Center preventing the museum’s planneddemolitionof an iconic Land art installation by Mary Miss from going ahead as scheduled. The order came after Missfiled suitagainst the Art Center on April 4 claiming that the museum’s destruction of her 1989–96 environmentGreenwood Pond: Double Sitewould violate the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, which gives artists the right to “prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature.” Commissioned by the Art Center in 1994,Greenwood Pondis thought to be the first urban wetland project in the United States.

Made from treated wood, concrete, mesh, and metal, the work meanders alongside its namesake pond in the same city park occupied by the Art Center. The museum, which had contracted with Miss to “reasonably protect and maintain the project against the ravages of time, vandalism and the elements,” upon its completion, allowed it to fall into ruin over the years as the elements took their toll. Faced with what it projected as a $2.7 million repair bill and an $8 million price tag for maintenance going forward, and having contracted with city officials in 1990 to “correct any unsafe conditions within a work of art sited inside” the park in which Miss’s installation sits, the Art Center had planned to begin tearing the work down on April 8.

In granting the restraining order, Judge Stephen Locher of the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa wrote that Miss in her suit had established thatGreenwood Pond“faces a threat of irreparable harm because once the artwork is removed, it can never be restored.” Locher additionally wrote that the museum had “not offered sufficient evidence to show that it actually faces a meaningful risk of suffering costs or damages” if the destruction was postponed, and noted that though the museum cast the decaying work as a danger to the public, it had closed off access to only a small portion of it.

“Our responsibility to public safety is paramount, and we believe we are compelled to take action as required per our 1990 agreement with the city of Des Moines to correct what has become a hazardous environment,” said Art Center spokesperson Amy Day in a statement. “However, we respect the court’s decision, and we will be pausing plans to remove the artwork from Greenwood Park. The sections declared dangerous and unsalvageable will remain enclosed in protective fencing.”

Miss in a statement affirmed that she was “pleased and relieved” by the decision “not only for what it has done forGreenwood Pond: Double Sitebut because it reaffirms the rights of all artists and the integrity of their legacies.”

A hearing to determine whether Miss’s suit may move forward will take place later this month.