INDIGENOUS INHABITANTS - 1968
Indigenous Inhabitants comprises 39 sculpted concrete shear panels distributed among the four buildings of the Irvine Financial Plaza. On each panel an image in sunken relief represents one of the indigenous inhabitants of Southern California. The images include “the beautiful Sailfish, the sport fisherman's favorite, which are caught and released;” “the mountain lions (cougars) of the Santa Ana Mountain Range;” “the common dolphin, a favorite of the boating community;” and “the indigenous hunter-gatherers residing in Southern California prior to the introduction of the Spanish and Mexican cultures.” [1]
An exception to the rule is the panel representing bison, which are “not indigenous to Southern California, but included in this group because Irvine was the actual site of the "Buffalo Ranch" established in the 19th century.” [2]
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Irvine Financial Plaza
800 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, CA 92660
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1968-1969
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William L. Pereira & Associates
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Exposed Aggregate Concrete
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1200 square feet on forty walls
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$39,000
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The Irvine Company
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Extant, in situ, excellent condition.
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Top right: Photographer, Julius Shulman, Job 4524, Irvine Towers, 1969. © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).
Center right: Lions panel, Irvine Plaza, c. 1968. Unknown photographer. TVS digital records.
Bottom right: Photographer, Julius Shulman, Job 4524, Irvine Towers, 1969. © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).
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The cast concrete technique used to make Indigenous Inhabitants produces the appearance of an intaglio, “which is the term to express form cut into a surface, as opposed to coming out from a surface.” [3] Intaglio relief sculpture, which Van Sant developed for Indigenous Inhabitants, would eventually become the artist’s signature style as a practitioner of Art in Architecture. [4]
The genesis of the technique, as described by the artist in 2008:
“William Pereira had designed...all these beautiful walls at the ground level, 15- by 20-foot panels that would be poured in place...And he was going to cover them with travertine...so he asked me if I had any ideas as an alternative...
...I said, well, instead of pouring the walls in place, let me do waste molds. I'll carve the molds inside-out and backwards. And I'll place them on the floor slab and cast the walls face-down into the floor. And then we'll tilt them up, and the sculpture will be right in the wall itself.
Well, nobody was quite sure about that. And so they insisted that we cast a test wall. But Bill Pereira and his architects...all were intrigued enough by the idea to let this young whippersnapper try it.
And so we cast a successful first panel and then did all of the other 39 walls.” [5]
Van Sant’s intaglio process, as described by the Los Angeles Times:
“The unusual process starts with small drawings of creatures indigenous to the Irvine Ranch area. Van Sant then uses a slide projector to cast their outlines onto Styrofoam for cutting and tracing. [Tony] Sheets...has been his aide in this preparatory phase of the work. But it is Van Sant who puts the delicate details – the tiny feathers, ruffled fur, or streamlined fins – on the figures.
He uses a variety of cutting tools, including his own design “super-scooper,” a contraption with a heated nichrome wire stretched between handlebars. Furthermore, he “thinks inside out” as he works, so that his finished creatures won’t be seen until 39 huge wall panels are completed at Newport Financial Plaza.
The 16-foot concrete panels weighing up to 70,000 lbs., are being poured on slabs as a normal part of modern tilt-up construction at the site overlooking Newport Harbor. Workmen get involved in the sculpting process as they take extra care with reinforcing steel and in pouring concrete after Van Sant and Sheets have glued the figures in place.
Later, when cranes lift the structural wall panels Styrofoam figures can be seen. But not until the whole panel has been sandblasted do the figures appear as the artist conceived them.” [6]
A journalist’s breezy description of Indigenous Inhabitants as “Instant Sculpture” belies the complexity of Van Sant’s intaglio technique. [7] However, the artist himself supported that position, saying: “I like working in the medium. It’s so easy, I can work anywhere.” [8]
Tom Van Sant was a lover of the natural world. Not only did it provide him with an abundance of subject matter, but he also recalibrated his career focus in the late 1980s (and sold his home) to make the GeoSphere Project. A tool intended to support the management of Earth’s resources rather than just their consumption, the GeoSphere Project was an act of love toward the Earth and its creatures.
There is irony in depicting indigenous inhabitants in the concrete walls of a “shopping center cluster of financial firms.”[9] The Irvine Plaza manifested both the system for which indigenous habitat was sacrificed and the primary material of its obliteration. The degree to which Van Sant intended this irony at the time of making is unknown.
[1] Tom Van Sant, Irvine Plaza, Dec. 11, 2012, TVS digital record.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Jo Lauria, “Oral history interview with Tom Van Sant, 2008 August 14-September 10,”Smithsonian Institute, Archives of American Art
[4] Van Sant’s work on the Geneva Presbyterian Church may have contributed to the process of inventing the intaglio technique.
[5] Jo Lauria, “Oral history interview with Tom Van Sant, 2008 August 14-September 10,”Smithsonian Institute, Archives of American Art
[6] “No chisel, Mallet: Two Artists Create Unusual Sculptures,” Los Angeles Times, Dec 9, 1968, pg. SG9
[7] “Instant Sculpture,” The Lowell Sun, Lowell, Massachusetts, June 22, 1969, Page 108
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Irvine Co. to Occupy New Tower This Fall,” Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1968, pg. N18.
