Settlement Reached Between Des Moines Art Center and Artist Over Sculpture Demolition

Part of the land artwork Greenwood Pond: Double Site, stands at Greenwood Pond in Des Moines, Iowa, on April 3, 2024. Scott McFetridge/AP Photo

A popular outdoor art installation in Iowa is set to be demolished by the museum that commissioned it, after a long-lasting legal dispute was settled.

The Des Moines Art Center reached a $900,000 dollar agreement with the artist, Mary Miss, to dismantle her environmental sculpture “Greenwood Pond: Double Site.”

“The settlement will end a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Miss on April 4, 2024, and allow the Des Moines Art Center to proceed with previously stated plans to remove the artwork in its entirety,” the two parties announced in a joint statement on Jan. 14.

The 80-year-old artist filed a lawsuit last year after the center first called for the destruction of the site, citing hazardous conditions and high repair costs.

Miss accused the center of violating her contract by not obtaining written permission to remove her artwork—which is comprised of curving walkways, bridges, and seating areas designed to encourage visitors to interact with the landscape.

Repair of the site would have cost more than $2 million dollars, according to officials. Now, the center will continue its plans to remove the artwork, with an exact date for demolition to be announced.

In exchange for the agreement, Miss releases any and all claims and causes of action that she may have against the art center, per the settlement.

“I am so appreciative of the broad support that has brought us to this final settlement: to the artists, designers, patrons and others who have followed the issues surrounding the future of Greenwood Pond: Double Site, I give my heartfelt thanks,” said Miss in a statement.

She said she plans to donate some of her settlement funds to the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit that advocated for Miss and on behalf of the artwork.

Miss and ‘Greenwood Pond: Double Site’

Miss, a New York-based artist, has been creating artwork since the early 1970s within the public art realm, combining art designs with landscape architecture and urban design.

She has produced a number of projects across the nation, including a temporary memorial around the perimeter of Ground Zero in Manhattan and a project highlighting the history of the Union Square Subway station in New York City.

In the late 1980s, the Art Center invited Miss to create the “Greenwood Pond: Double Site” project for a city-owned park on museum grounds, before it opened in 1996.

“Greenwood Pond” was the first urban wetland art project in Iowa and in the United States, according to Jessica Rowe, former director of the Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation, in the book “An Uncommon Vision.”

“To have a work of mine owned by such a well-regarded institution as the Des Moines Art Center, was hugely significant for me,” said Miss last year.

“As the only large scale sited work of mine that is owned by a museum to date, it is particularly important. It is my understanding that the mission of museums is to steward the works in their collection and that this was therefore a permanent part of that collection,” she continued.