Celebrated artwork will be removed from an Iowa park as its creator ends fight to preserve the work

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A nationally known outdoor artwork will be removed from a park pond in Des Moines under a settlement announced Tuesday, ending a legal fight between the New York artist who created the work decades ago and a local art center that argued it couldn’t afford needed repairs to the site.

Under the agreement, the Des Moines Art Center will pay $900,000 to artist Mary Miss, who will end her effort to block removal of her work, Greenwood Pond: Double Site. The art center will remove the work as soon as possible, though efforts could be delayed by Iowa’s cold, winter weather.

Miss and the art center agreed as part of the settlement not to disparage each other, but the leader of an organization that sought to preserve the artwork expressed disappointment at its pending removal.

Charles A. Birnbaum, president and CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, said in a statement that what happened to the work could have and should have been prevented.

However, he said, “the institution that commissioned the environmental sculpture for its permanent collection appears to have failed as a proper custodian and steward of this widely acclaimed and influential artwork, which is a core function and responsibility.”

Greenwood Pond: Double Site was completed in 1996 on the shores of a pond in a historic city park just west of downtown Des Moines. The artwork, located down a hill from the art center, is made up of wooden walkways, shelters and viewing sites that encourage people to see and interact with nature.

Although known locally as a spot for picnics and family photos, the artwork was celebrated nationally and seen as a career high point for Miss, a rare female artist in the male-dominated field of landscape architecture.

Since its creation, the largely wooden artwork has needed periodic repairs due to Iowa’s frigid winters and hot, humid summers. However, Miss was surprised when the art center blocked access to some parts of the work in early 2024 and then informed her it would be removed because of the multi-million-dollar cost of repairing and maintaining the structures.

Miss expressed optimism the work could be saved and she ultimately filed a lawsuit to block its removal, noting her contract with the art center required her approval to tear out the structures.

“I would be shocked if it was just torn out,” Miss said in February 2024. “It doesn’t deserve it. People don’t deserve to have that happen.”

In a statement following the agreement, Miss expressed hope that the dispute would encourage tighter bonds between artists, communities and cultural institutions. Miss will be the first donor to a new Public Art Advocacy Fund created by The Cultural Landscape Foundation to highlight and preserve landscape art.

The art center released a statement confirming the agreement but didn’t respond to a request for details about its timeline for removing the artwork. The center earlier announced plans for a roughly three-month process of bringing heavy equipment to the site, draining the pond to allow access to infrastructure and building new paths.

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