Artists & Artworks
The Great Mosque at Djenné
The Great Mosque is located in Djenné, Mali, one of
the oldest and most valuable inhabited cities in Africa.
Constructed in 1906, the Great Mosque stands on the site
of the first mosque, completed in the thirteenth century.
Built of plaster-covered, sun-dried mud bricks, the Mosque
covers the area of a full city block. On Friday, the Islamic
holy day, many Muslims gather together at noon for
prayers, and throughout the
week, the area around the
Great Mosque serves as a
central meeting and market
place for the community.
The United Nations
Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) named the Old
Towns of Djenné, including the Great Mosque, a World
Heritage Site in 1984. This designation signals the Great
Mosque’s importance as a place considered to be of what
UNESCO sees as outstanding value to humanity.
of Native American artifacts found in the Ohio Valley.
The Cincinnati Gateway inspires new ways to think
about the city’s history and reminds all who visit that
special places have stories to tell about their past.
Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) From Survival
Jenny Holzer was born in Ohio in 1950 and earned her
bachelor’s degree in printmaking and painting. In the
experts.” Like messages in advertising and the media,
her statements can be found screened onto a coffee mug,
moving across an LED sign, or flashing from a billboard
in Times Square, as in the featured image from her
Survival series. Architectural interiors are transformed by
her projected and moving words. She carefully selects the
places where she will install her works, often allowing
the plan to evolve as she returns repeatedly to the space.
Often accompanied by sound, these projections envelope
visitors within the space. Jenny Holzer transforms places
with her messages, urging her audiences to stop and
think about humanitarian issues and how they are living
their own lives.
“I mean at some point in your life you
have to leave your home. And whenever
you go back it’s just not the same home
anymore. I think home is something that
you carry along with your life.”
—Do-Ho Suh
Andrew Leicester (b. 1948) Cincinnati Gateway
For more than thirty-five years, Andrew Leicester has
worked exclusively on projects for public spaces. He has
transformed these spaces into promenades, park entrances,
courtyards, memorials, plazas, gateways, and landmarks,
always with ideas and images connected to the history of
the place and its relationship to the community.
In 1988, the people of Cincinnati, Ohio, asked Leicester to create an entrance to Bicentennial Park, a downtown riverfront park. The completed gateway includes
tall riverboat smokestacks topped with sculpted winged
pigs. These forms refer to Cincinnati’s history as a river
port and a major producer of pork. As a reminder of the
city’s Native American heritage, Leicester created a wall
that includes glazed ceramic “fossils” and reproductions
Andrew Leicester, Cincinnati Gateway, Entrance to Bicentennial Park, drawing, 1988.
© Andrew Leicester.
Do-Ho Suh (b. 1962)
Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore
Home/London Home/Seattle Home/L.A. Home
Do-Ho Suh was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1962. He studied
art in his homeland and, after completing mandatory
military service, relocated to the United States to con-
tinue his studies.
The idea of “place” is important to Suh, who
talks about feeling disoriented after moving to
the United States and longing for his home. He
also talks about “transcultural displacement,” a
feeling of being neither here nor there. In 1999,
memories of his life in both New York and Seoul
led him to create replicas of the home where he
spent his childhood and his New York apartment.
Using semi-transparent fabrics, Suh constructed
a sculpture that could easily be packed in a suitcase and carried around while traveling. When
installed, viewers can actually walk through the
sewn-together architectural forms and enter his
New York apartment, noting sewn details such
as bookshelves, light switches, and doorknobs.
Wrought from memories of places with private
significance, these publicly installed forms
explore the relationship between personal space
and public space.
