Fifty-Four Columns

This is so cool I love the pillars of concrete. Its so cool to be driving down the road in atlanta and then look to the right or left and there they are just standing there. so cool

Sure. It looks like an unfinished construction site for one of the most boring structures in the entire neighborhood. It lacks hue and variance in the sense of shapes and curves, but it is art. The subjective view, though, seems to be ubiquitously leaning towards «Oh, no. What have you done?» Rather unfortunate, but I suppose there could have been a more acceptable or understandable placement for this work.
One thing that I dig about this work is that it is meant to mirror or represent the Atlanta skyline. Not something you would think as a passerby, but if you get a good look at it from across Highland, you can get the right perspective.
Though unsightly, I can’t hate on Fifty-​Four Columns too much. Its art and not all art is for everyone. Even though this work doesn’t speak to my soul and inspire me to uproot my feelings for art altogether, I still can appreciate some of the smaller details.

I hate this «art». The artist was probably trying to make some statement about depressing urban concrete cities, but at the time it was built, I was living in a depressing, concrete part of Atlanta, and the last thing I wanted to see was an intentional structure created to look just as depressing. Don’t make more of it. Go less than a mile downtown, and you can enjoy the same thing along with the foul smell of urine in the baking heat, without paying an artist to recreate the misery.

For public art, Fifty-​Four Columns feels a little dated. It is. .. well, it is what it’s called: fifty-​four columns of cinder blocks and cement in a narrow grassy park. It’s decent public art for the 60’s, but a little stale today. It also doesn’t help that the placard detailing the idea behind the art is faded and unreadable.
For some reason, the exhibit is much more interesting in a photo than in person. In a frozen image, the grey cinder block columns feel cold and sterile against the green of the grass and trees. In person, the cinder block just seems aged.

I am all for art in the city. But this is just a waste of space. Could have been a park or a slaugher house and added more to the area for sure.

Hands down, the ugliest piece of public art I’ve seen in Atlanta. I can’t help showing out-​of-​town friends this abomination whenever they visit.

I’m not sure how to rate this place. It has a meaning however, it would really be helpful if you could read the placard to understand why this exists BUT– it is too faded to read!
Most people may just drive by and think hmm and keep going!

So I’ve heard about this cyclopean travesty of non-​euclidean geometry for quite some time. I was paralyzed with gibbering fear at the thought of this otherworldy abomination. My fear was justified. I only hope I can warn the rest of you in time. What has been seen cannot be unseen.
How was this thing selected? I suspect this is the result of a long strange trip involving hookers and blow, and when the haze wore off, the tiny remaining budget was spent on cinder blocks and day laborers and «fuel» to justify how the resulting columns are the true artistic expression of the clay, that the artist was powerless to prevent this metamorphasis.
How many tax dollars were wasted on this «sculpture»? How much is wasted every year to maintain and paint them? $ 7,500 for the last paint job in 2009 and its already peeling. This is the sort of thing that makes cutting public funding of the arts a great target.

Damn if those aren’t some straight lines on them there concrete block columns! Now, I am coming at this from a layman’s perspective about laying concrete block, mind you, not having any professional experience. But I did build my own «Great Wall of Chamblee» as I like to call it – a giant retaining wall in my back yard made of concrete block with stone fascia, and I know what a bitch it is to get straight lines. The artist, or mason, or day laborers that made this Fifty-​Four Columns display apparently knew what they were doing. 4-​stars on the masonry work, amigos!
That said, this display is a bit confusing. When I first moved to Atlanta 5 years ago, I lived down the street at Highland Walk, and the first few times I drove by this exhibit, I thought to myself, «what the f*ck??» But after a while, they just blurred into the background and unfortunately went unnoticed, something all too common in our busy lives.
So stop and smell the roses, y’all. Or at least stop and admire those damn straight lines!

I’m with the other reviewers on this: I thought this was a construction project that tanked along with the economy a few years back. Boy, was I wrong …
It is said that «Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.» Well, there is nothing beautiful about this place. It’s just kind of there, kind of like that one guy from your hometown that sits at the same bar, getting older and older but still hanging out with a new crop of 18-​year-​olds.

I’m just glad to see that an entire city lot can still be reserved for public art, especially by such a world-​renown artist.
I think it serves as an exceptional buffer between a busy street, highland ave, and the poncey highland neighborhood (or is it o4w?)
if we imagine what else it could be, a boarded up house with empty bottles strewn in the front yard, I think ART is a great replacement.
maybe we should consider more art, less dysfunction of our neighborhoods.

I had the same «is this abandoned construction?» reaction. Come to think of it, this sculpture is a close replication of the 20-​foot cement block posts that hold up a neighbor’s (very attractive) back porch.
54 Columns may be pretty miserable looking, but I give it one star for what it stands for (as described beautifully by Ivan) and one for resembling do-​it-​yourself-​outside-​of-​code home fix-​it.

Over in the Old Fourth Ward, on the corner of Highland Ave. and Glenn Iris, sits an art installation created by an award-​winning, internationally-​recognized artist. A sculpture of such awe-​inspiring wonder, only one thing crosses the mind when viewing it. That word? Craptacular.
OK, I know art is subjective and that in its purest form, it exists to elicit a reaction from the admirer, creating a symbiotic relationship between the viewer and the viewed. This convergence of piece, person, and cultural context became even more of a focal point following the paradigmatic shift from Romanticism to Modernism. Thus, a modern piece as the Fifty-​Four Columns is meant to reflect a sense of place contextualized by the ever dynamic skyline of Atlanta looming in the background; this juxtaposition is even more striking in a changing neighborhood such as the Old Fourth Ward. I also understand that public art is about the democratization of art, improving its access to all in order to generate a sense of community in this increasingly transient world.
That said, this piece both sucks AND blows. In fact, for the longest time, I thought it was an abandoned construction site for a new loft complex a developer just never got around to finishing. I’ve flushed better art than this. So apologies to the artist, Sol le Witt, if this wasn’t your intended response. You can submit your own review if you want. And to those of you walking the trails of Freedom Park, go ahead and check the, um, art out. At least now you know what it’s called.