Vandals set fire to Tree of Transformation art installation

City police and officials from the Denver Fire Department and Colorado Parks and Wildlife are investigating a fire in Civic Center that damaged artwork Wednesday morning.

Later Wednesday morning, the wood-framed piano was covered tightly by black plastic next to the midweek lunchtime food truck festival.

The apparent vandalism was at least the fourth — and most debilitating — episode suffered by the art piece since March, said Eric Lazzari, director of operations for the Civic Center Conservancy.

He said past incidents typically involved “what looks like a baseball bat being taken to it several times,” he said. Each time, the piece was repaired. After one incident, the piano’s keyboard had to be replaced.

In the most recent incident two or three weeks ago, Lazzari said, police caught a vandal in the act.

This time, repairs and reinstallation aren’t likely. Tree of Transformation was near its scheduled retirement date, so Lazzari said the conservancy likely would remove the piece while it makes plans for the next public art installation. The piano piece was the first to be installed as part of the new program.

“We knew it was going to be a learning experience,” Lazzari said.

He said the spike in recurring vandalism to the piece began more than two months after its installation, around the time that homeless people and urban campers began setting up in the park and along its edges during the daytime.

Although the fire department’s tweet said more than one art piece was damaged Wednesday morning, Lazzari said the other vandalism appeared to be limited to trash barrels elsewhere in the park.

The Tree of Transformation is an interactive wood-and-steel sculpture that depicts a tree-like structure sprouting from the top of a functional, weatherized piano.

It was installed in January as part of a new public-art push from Civic Center Conservancy, dubbed Civic Center Art in the Park, that furthers its mission of preserving, restoring and activating different areas of the sprawling space between the state Capitol and Denver’s City and County Building. This story includes reporting from staff writer John Wenzel.