Officials remove guerrilla-art installation from Maxwell Lake
boulder» A guerrilla-art installation that mysteriously appeared several months ago at Boulder’s Maxwell Lake has seen its limited run ended abruptly by city officials.
Residents in the Linden Park-Wonderland Lake neighborhoods noticed as far back as last summer two curious items added to the landscape at tiny Maxwell Lake. A child’s bicycle fixed atop a metal pole and a carved female figurine were both planted well out from shore where only the ducks and well-fed carp might easily inspect them.
More recently, the bike on a pole had been relocated to the lake’s eastern shore, where those not looking for it might even miss it among the trees.
They were still in place as recently as midafternoon Thursday. But, in less than 24 hours following a reporter’s inquiry to the city Parks and Recreation department about the item’s presence there, they had been removed.
“The city did not have any community-initiated project permitted for the park,” said Denise White, communications specialist for Boulder’s Parks & Recreation.
The bike and the figurine, she said, were handled as unauthorized or abandoned artwork, and taken to the Boulder Parks Division facility at 5200 Pearl St. They didn’t remain there long.
“The individual who put them there stopped by the parks division to collect them (Friday), so the pieces are back in his possession,” White said in an e-mail. “Staff shared the permitting process with him should he have future art ideas.”