Comments (0) BEST PUBLIC ART - 2005
"Tributary Wall" by Kevin Berry with Design Workshop
How we love art that happens to be functional as well as visually arresting and entertaining. That's why we're particularly enamored of artist Kevin Berry's "Tributary Wall," which undulates its way along the west side of Goldwater Boulevard between Camelback and Indian School roads in Scottsdale.
Berry's rusty metal fish-out-of-water, swimming placidly on a rippling wall toward a canal originally built by the Hohokam Indians, does double time as a sound barrier for an adjacent residential area affected by nearby commercial development. The fish, one of which swims upstream, are set against glass blocks that allow light to stream out against the wall, which is lined with a metal grid fence stuffed with smooth river stones.
Conceptually, this is Berry's "tribute" to our Native American forefathers who first tamed water in the barren desert of the Valley, as well as to the very headstrong nature of Arizonans themselves, who are notorious for going against the flow.
