A Downstate artist has won a national sculpture competition sponsored by Northern Illinois University to honor Martin Luther King Jr.
Dann Nardi of Bloomington, a former teacher at Illinois State University, won a $75,000 prize for his design of a 17-foot high concrete sculpture to be completed by Sept. 1 on NIU`s campus in De Kalb.
Nardi`s abstract work, titled ”Balance of Equality,” consists of two black-and-white cones stacked in a hourglass shape. The sculpture ”is about integration” and is intended as ”both a tribute to King and a symbol of the principles, values and ideas he so fervently championed,” Nardi said.
The sculpture will be placed in a pedestrian mall named for King near NIU`s Holmes Student Center.
”This is the first memorial I`ve been commissioned to do,” Nardi said.
”Martin Luther King is a tremendous figurehead whom I admire and respect. He is somebody I wanted to speak about”.
In selecting Nardi`s work, a panel of 10 jurors ”chose a representation of King`s ideals and principles rather than a realistic likeness of him,”
said Eddie R. Williams, an NIU vice president who chaired the panel.
