Ptolemy's Web, (2006)

Ptolemy’s Web, 2006
Weathered Steel Sculpture
Beverly Pepper, New York, NY
Collection Hennepin County Library - Minneapolis Central
Photo by Hennepin County Library

"Ptolemy’s Web by internationally acclaimed sculptor Beverly Pepper greets patrons at Minneapolis Central Library’s main entrance. The thirty-foot-tall work in reddish-brown weathered steel was commissioned through the library’s Percent for Art program especially for this location. Pepper is known for large-scale free-standing works and also site-specific outdoor installations – primarily in weathered steel – that are integrated with landscapes.

She remarks, 'the sculpture’s pyramidal blade-shaped base echoes the shape of the [library’s] roof that overhangs Nicollet Mall. The sculpture’s upper wedge echoes the forward-tilting shape of the main entry curtain wall. It was my intention to create a dynamic sculptural event through the visual integration of the building’s principal character-defining elements.'

Ptolemy was a first-century mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologist who lived in the Greek-Roman city of Alexandria, Egypt. He developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomy and produced models of the solar system and a star catalog. He also compiled geographic coordinates and a grid that spanned the part of the world known to the Roman Empire. Pepper’s rational approach to geometry, how she positioned the sculpture against the surrounding architecture, and her intuitive balancing of the forms, all demonstrate the legacy of Ptolemy’s thought."