Monarch

Cliff Garten Studio is internationally recognized for creating integrated public art projects which collaborate with urban design, architecture, landscape architecture and engineering to challenge the assumptions of how public places are built and used. Through a diversity of materials, methods and scale, the studio is committed to exploiting the artistic and expressive potential of public spaces and infrastructure in varied urban and natural contexts.

It is necessary to get close to the sculpture to realize it is thousands of small butterflies

Cliff Garten has a Masters of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design and a Masters of Landscape Architecture from Harvard University GSD. He has served as a visiting critic and lecturer at Harvard University, University of California-Los Angeles, University of Southern California and the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Photo courtesy of Cliff Garten Studio

The sculpture references the mating ritual of the Monarch butterfly. The sculpture is 26’ tall and created from approximately 900 laser cut, stainless steel butterflies. From dusk to dark the sculpture is illuminated with changing colors mapped to its surface.