Art designed to bring people ‘Together’
Slack says sculpture reflects community effort
After more than two and a half years of work, Joe Slack’s 26-foot-tall, 18,000pound steel sculpture “Together Together” has finally come, well, together.
“I am definitely a little bit of a different person than when I started it. It’s like a four-year college program. When you go to this scale, you just learn new things. ... I’ve learned some things about myself, worked on a little more patience,” Slack told The Oklahoman.
Measuring 12 foot wide and 12 foot deep and weighing nine tons, the Oklahoma City’s sculptor’s outdoor artwork is anchoring the northwest corner of the OKC Convention Center.
Commissioned by Allied Arts to mark its 50th anniversary in 2021, Slack’s “Together Together” will be celebrated at a public unveiling at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a sunset toast and a private reception. (The event originally was scheduled for last week but postponed because of rainy weather.)
“I’ve lost a lot of sleep worrying, but I’m as happy as I could be, I think, with it,” Slack said. “The people that have been helping me have been great; my team of assistants have been awesome. ... A lot of people have pitched in for this; it’s definitely a community effort. It’s fitting with the title ‘Together Together.’ ”
Slack is perhaps best known for his “Birdwatching OKC Thunder Lightning Dance Party,” a more than 600-footlong installation stretching along Classen Boulevard between NW 7 and NW 9.
Transported to the site in 12 different components on a 44-foot flatbed trailer, the OKC native said “Together Together” is the largest single piece of art he’s ever created – at least now that it’s fully assembled.
Underwritten by Rick and Lerri Cooper and W&W/AFCO Steelt, “Together Together” memorializes the late W&W Steel executive Bert Cooper. Created in Slack’s distinctive “primitive modern” style, the sculpture consists of three human figures standing together.
As the title indicates, “Together Together” is about bringing people together through personal connections and community dialogue.
What other sculpture just made its debut in downtown OKC?
Slack’s “Together Together” is the second long-awaited large-scale public sculpture by a local artist to debut in downtown OKC in the past month.
Measuring 12 feet tall by 10 foot wide, Klint Schor’s “The Kiss” debuted in November at the northeast corner of N Robinson Avenue and Robert S. Kerr at Oklahoma Commons. As the title indicates, the sculpture features two large abstracted heads locked in a kiss.
“They’re not welded together; they’re slotted into one another. So, each one is balancing the other,” said Schor, adding that 4-inch miniature versions of “The Kiss” are for sale in the Oklahoma City Museum of Art store.
“It doesn’t show any gender or religious (belief ) of any kind. They’re just two heads ... and they need each other to support one another because they’re interlocked.”
Touching on themes of love, hope and unity, Schor’s large-scale piece was commissioned by Downtown OKC Initiatives through the Artist Invitational, a call for local artists to submit their ideas for public art and placemaking in downtown Oklahoma City.
“The Kiss” piece was commissioned in 2017 with a site in mind but not secured.
Downtown OKC Initiatives and the artist pursued multiple locations for the large sculpture to no avail. In 2019, the artwork was to be donated to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame for a planned sculpture garden, and Schor began fabricating and completed the sculpture.
But plans for the sculpture garden were scrapped in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sculpture’s ultimate downtown home at Robinson and Kerr was finalized this year.
Schor also has created the local public artworks “Glacial Erratics,” a collection of five large steel boulders at Larry McAtee Park at Crystal Lake, and “Knot Column,” a twisty yellow piece placed along Linwood Boulevard between N Brauer Avenue and N Douglas Avenue.
What are the artist’s hopes for ‘ Together Together’?
For two large-scale public sculptures by two local artists to debut in downtown OKC within weeks of each other is interesting timing, Slack said, especially since both projects were years in the making.
Plus, he and Schor consider each other friends, as well as fellow artists.
Last month, Slack attended the unveiling for “The Kiss,” and Schor stopped by the OKC Convention Center a few days later to check in on Slack during the installation of “Together Together.”
“A lot of times there’s a misconception that you need to be from somewhere else to be good at something – or that you need to go somewhere else to get work in Oklahoma,” Slack said.
“It’s a weird thing, but I think that’s starting to change.
“You don’t need to be an artist from Oklahoma that moves to Santa Fe to get a piece in Oklahoma,” Slack said.
After all the in-depth planning and physical labor – including 14 months of fabrication – the Oklahoma sculptor said he hopes that “Together Together” will provide a striking place for people to get together.