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NEWS
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
Allison Richardson/KANSAN
Matthew Burke, assistant professor of art, works on his sculpture for Avenue of the Arts on Tuesday afternoon. Burke wore gloves while gluing together pieces of wood because the type of glue he used was strong enough to bond to his skin and stay there for up to three weeks.
Professor's sculpture wins recognition
ART
Matthew Burke's oversized 'kinetic' art to be installed in downtown KCMO
BY BRANDY ENTSMINGER bentsminger@kansan.com
Matthew Burke, associate professor of art, will install his 75-footlong kinetic sculpture 20 feet above the ground in Kansas City, Mo., by the end of the month.
Burke was one of six artists selected for the 2008 Avenue of the Arts, a program that places artwork along a section of Central Street in downtown Kansas City every year. The piece, called "Hoops and Birds," will be attached to the side of Bartle Hall Convention Center, the building in Kansas City with four art deco pylons that jut into the city's skyline.
Burke said he applied for Avenue of the Arts because he wanted to share his work on a local level and also because he applied last year and wasn't selected.
"Kansas City is a very vital, really vibrant city and has an incredible art scene," Burke said. "Through this, I wanted to be a part of that art scene."
Porter Arneill, director and public art administrator with the Municipal Art Commission of
Kansas City, said about 30 artists applied for the Avenue of the Arts this year. The six who were selected were provided with $5,000 to bring their proposals to life.
Burke's piece, which will be displayed from September to May of next year, features three gold, high-density foam birds encircled by 20 hardwood hoops that range in diam-
in length and is designed to hang on a wall.
Burke said the scale of this sculpture was his biggest challenge. With the original, smaller sculpture
"Kansas City is a very vital, really vibrant city and has an incredible art scene. Through this, I wanted to be a part of that art scene."
MATTHEW BURKE Associate professor of art
eter from three to six feet. Burke called the work a kinetic sculpture because the hoops and birds rotate around a large pole sticking out of Bartle Hall.
He said his inspiration for the piece was the passage of time—the hoops represent days, weeks or moments, and the birds represent travelers through time.
he was able to rearrange the components easily. But the placement of the components on the new piece must be determined before installation.
The sculpture is a larger version of a piece Burke had already created, which measures about 14 feet
pended work Burke has ever created. He said he hired a structural engineer, Eric Graham, to make sure the piece would be installed properly.
Graham said the piece would be difficult to install because he was not allowed to drill new holes in the outside wall of Bartle Hall. Instead, he will have to use pre-existing holes that measure two inches wide and two inches deep.
Graham usually works on buildings, and he said this project was unique because it was something that hadn't been done before and probably wouldn't be done again.
"Its a little bit of a challenge because there's just not a real text-book way to do it." Graham said.
Burke said the majority of his artwork was slightly larger than life-size, and that he had been working primarily with wood for the past 10 years. But his past work didn't limit what he could do, he said.
"You're able to kind of expand your artistic vocabulary when the situation arises," he said.
Burke said he used the money for labor, materials, hardware and rental of a scissor lift for installation. Burke has created only one other large piece: a 100-foot snake for the Smoky Hill River Festival in Salina this summer. He said he created the basic shape of the snake from wire and then invited community members to help weave thin strips of wood onto the frame.
- Edited by Mary Sorrick
NATIONAL
More than 9,000 charges filed against meatpacking plant
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DES MOINES, Iowa — The owner and managers of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant were charged Tuesday with more than 9,000 misdemeanors alleging they hired minors and had children younger than 16 handle dangerous equipment such as circular saws, meat grinders and power shears.
They are the first criminal charges against operators of the
Agriprocessors plant in Postville, where nearly 400 illegal immigrants working at the facility were arrested in May in one of the largest single-site immigration raids in U.S. history.
The complaint filed by the Iowa attorney general's office said the violations involved 32 illegal-immigrant children under age 18. Aside from handling dangerous equipment, the complaint also said children were exposed to dangerous chemicals such as chlorine solutions and dry ice.
The attorney general's office said the violations occurred from Sept. 9,2007, to May 12,2008, when the plant was raided by immigration agents.
Charged are the company itself, Agriprocessors Inc., plant owner Abraham Aaron Rubashkin; former plant manager Sholom Rubashkin; human resources manager Elizabeth Billmeyer; and Laura Althouse and Karina Freund, management employees in the company's human resources division.
Each defendant faces 9,311 individual counts — one for each day a particular violation is alleged for each worker. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said at a news conference on Tuesday that he would not elaborate on what evidence led to the indictment.
"All of the named individual defendants possessed shared knowledge that Agriprocessors employed undocumented aliens. It was likewise shared knowledge among the defendants that many of those workers were minors," the
affidavit said.
The charges are simple misdeanors, each carrying a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a fine of $65 to $625.
Miller said the case was the largest of its type he'd handled in his 26 years as attorney general.
"This was not one mistake, two mistakes, three mistakes, but many, many mistakes."
Sonia Parras Konrad, an attorney representing more than 20 of the children, said her clients were as young as 14 when they started
C h a i m Abrams, a manager at the plant, said in a statement that Agriprocessors "vehemently
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our day in court."
SONIA PARRAS KONRAD Attorney
working at the plant.
"We don't need to see any papers to see that someone is a child," she said. "This was not me mistake, two mistakes, three mistakes, but many, many mistakes."