Pasadena has an extensive program of rotating public art, which is replaced every few years with new pieces in the same spot. As of spring 2023 the Angel sculpture is now gone, leaving only the pedestal, but a new work will appear soon. This sculpture by artist Cliff Garten, was called "And The Angel Wants To Go Back And Fix Things," arrived around Thanksgiving 2018.
Log only. BYOP.
Congrats to Eagle Rock Rob for FTF!
From the Pasadena art coordinator (thanks, Carl, for digging this up):
The artist’s concept for this artwork was inspired by the passage below:
History is an angel being blown backwards into the future,
History is a pile of debris,
And the angel wants to go back to fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And this storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future
And this storm
This storm
We call Progress
—Laurie Anderson, the dream before, paraphrased from Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History
“On a busy street in Pasadena, an angel sits on a triangle of land, waiting. Cars pass in two directions. The idea that angels are everywhere—or that they even exist—is an historical conundrum. The site is a left-over piece of land, too small for the value of real estate and defined by the rods that pass it, an indeterminate space. The angel has perched here. (It) is based upon a liturgical stone figure that is stretched from its formal posture into a kind of apparition, a wind-blown blur that is not quite defined until one travels past its widest frontal presentation and clearly sees its human profile from the side. The angel is positioned so that its human form is only glimpsed for a moment, maybe connecting with us as we pass in our car. This angel is there for us, or maybe it is not.” —Cliff Garten, 2018.
The sculpture is made of coroplast, a recycled plastic packing material. It is comprised of 250 cut sections that are ¼” thick, stacked on a steel frame and separated by ¼” openings of negative space. The material is translucent, appearing white in the sunlight, but transparent when viewed between sections at eye level. As eye level changes, the sculpture becomes transparent in different sections, contributing to the elusive effect of the form. At night, the angel is illuminated from within by strings of led lights that make the entire form glow.