Dawn DeDeaux’s massive multipart installation juts out along Swope Park’s Pavilion Drive, cresting over the hill and down into the woods.
It was installed as part of Open Spaces, the new multi-art biennial festival that’s happening all over Kansas City for the next two months. Inspired in part by Germany’s documenta, the festival combines two different concepts by Kansas City civic leaders and philanthropists.
The work–Free Fall: Prophecy and Free Will in Milton’s Paradise Lost–looks impressive and surprising when you pass it, but requires examination beyond what you can view from the roadway. She’s attached excerpts from Paradise Lost to the columns and each reading grants a individualized facet to the work. The lettering, rendered in reflective material, changes brilliance in the sunlight as you tromp between columns and at night the headlights from passing cars leaving Starlight Theater will flash and illumine the work.
This particular column’s text attracted me. Its gusto seemed a response apropos to Open Spaces’ full bore attitude and expansive scope. 
Images: Libby Hanssen
Proust Eats a Sandwich 
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