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Artist Jennifer Wen Ma poses with her installation piece Tuesday in Market Square, Downtown.
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Artist’s gift to Pittsburgh: art project with meaning in Market Square

Ralph Musthaler/Post-Gazette

Artist’s gift to Pittsburgh: art project with meaning in Market Square

Embracing winter may be a tall order by now, but internationally acclaimed artist Jennifer Wen Ma took the challenge and made a gift to Pittsburgh with a conceptual art installation in Market Square, Downtown.

“A Winter Landscape Cradling Bits of Sparkle” is being assembled for a 2 p.m. ribbon cutting Thursday to hail the second presentation of the Market Square Public Art Program. The artist will speak at a reception that’s open to the public from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the auditorium at 11 Stanwix St., the former Westinghouse Tower at Stanwix and Fort Pitt Boulevard.

The program debuted last year to encourage activity in Market Square in the last weeks of winter. The British team KMA’s “Congregation” attracted people onto a video projection, like a dance floor on the plaza, where heat sensors captured their movements by throwing light patterns. It played from Feb. 21 to March 16.

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Ms. Wen Ma’s piece will remain until April 12 to ensure the transition of winter into spring.

Firefighters respond to a reported incident at Market Square in Downtown today. The smoke was coming from a fog machine that was part of the art exhibition.
Andrew Goldstein
In Market Square, where there's smoke, there may not be fire

The exhibit, a copse of 125 mulched trees surrounded by a wavy wooden path, is at the edge of the square nearest Stanwix Street. An elevated, covered walkway cuts through the trees, and the view from there will include 100 lighted glass crystals made by Lyla Nelson at the Pittsburgh Glass Center.

Ms. Wen Ma painted the trees — including bamboo, willow and fruit — with Chinese ink. As the trees bud and foliate, the black backdrop intensifies the colors. The ink is non-toxic, made from charcoal and animal fat.

“I wanted to show the sharp transition,” Ms. Wen Ma said at a press conference on Tuesday. “And it has layers of meaning.”

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The contrast represents winter into spring but also Pittsburgh’s rejuvenation from its post-industrial slump. Winter also represents the fallow time of life, she said. “We need time within ourselves in order to have a time of creativity.”

The Market Square art program team is the city’s Public Art Division, the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s Office of Public Art and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. It is supported by the Heinz Endowments, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership and an anonymous donor.

Renee Piechocki, director of the Office of Public Art, said the mulch, trees and wood all will find homes after April 12. Construction Junction will sell the trees, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy will salvage the mulch and the wood will go to the Wheel Mill indoor bike and skate park.

Ms. Wen Ma, 41, is based in Beijing and New York City. She was the chief designer of visual effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, for which she won an Emmy. She has exhibited paintings and multi-media and conceptual art worldwide.

First Published: February 18, 2015, 5:00 a.m.

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Artist Jennifer Wen Ma poses with her installation piece Tuesday in Market Square, Downtown.  (Ralph Musthaler/Post-Gazette)
Artist Jennifer Wen Ma, poses with her installation piece in Market Square Tuesday.  (Ralph Musthaler/Post-Gazette)
Ralph Musthaler/Post-Gazette
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