George Beasley
1996
Bronze and mild steel
Thirty-six feet in height, the Five Points Monument commemorates the historic intersection where trolley tracks and an artesian water tower once stood, as well as the five streets that intersect to form the heart of Downtown Atlanta. The sculpture is an asymmetric interpretation of the water tower’s traditional girder construction, its structural steel trusses alluding to the trolley tracks now buried below the street. An adjacent smaller sculpture displays texts that focus on the history and destination of each of the five streets forming the intersection: Peachtree, Edgewood, Decatur, Whitehall (South Peachtree), and Marietta. Bronze panels reference the area’s history through text, maps, and other formal data.
Much of artist George Beasley’s work is site-specific installation/performance created to convey to viewers the experience of the “dance” of iron making. The structures, which remain after the initial event has taken place, are visual testimonies of those events. Inspiration for Beasley’s imagery originates from personal and familial links to Celtic history and to the iron foundries of Scotland and the US. He credits these links with his decision to become a sculptor and his adoption of foundry work as a means of artistic expression. George Beasley joined the School of Art and Design faculty at Georgia State University in 1970. Beasley believes effective teaching to be an outgrowth of studio/apprentice practice. He stresses the idea of teaching by example using the production of almost all of his own work in school studios as a vehicle to demonstrate concepts and processes.
Five Points Intersection
Peachtree St NW at Marietta St NW
Atlanta, GA 30303