Sculpture Exhibit's Last Appearance

City Life, a public art exhibition, will make its final appearance in downtown Dayton this summer. The popular sculptures are life-sized and will be on display downtown for the community to enjoy from May 15 to August 14, 2009.

City Life debuted in downtown Dayton during the summer of 2007, and tens of thousands of people came to enjoy the unique works of J. Seward Johnson, Jr. This summer’s exhibit will differ from the past two years as it will feature fifteen unique life-sized bronze sculptures and one 25-foot sculpture on Courthouse Square. Several favorites will be returning, including the sculptures depicting Marilyn Monroe and “V-J day in Times Square,” the famous kiss between the sailor and the nurse at the end of World War II. The large sculpture on Courthouse Square is an abstract depiction of Shakespeare’s King Lear and looks strikingly different from the other sculptures, which capture realistic depictions of human gestures.

Another new element this year is a mosaic exhibit titled Dayton Originals by K12 Gallery for Young People. Students and artists at the gallery have created large glass mosaics, and ten of them will be featured during City Life. Prints of the mosaics will fill the street-level windows of downtown buildings. The locations of these prints will also be marked in the City Life map.

City Life brochures will include a map that highlights all of the locations of the sculptures. The brochures will be available in early May at www.downtowndayton.org, and hard copies will be available closer to the start of the exhibit at Courthouse Square, RiverScape, and in other key areas downtown.

City Life is presented by the City of Dayton, Montgomery County, the Downtown Dayton Partnership, and Culture Works, with major sponsorship support from WDTN-TV-2. Area businesses are helping make the project possible by sponsoring the individual sculptures. A walking map that highlights all of the statue locations will be available at the beginning of May, as well as information on a photo contest that will take place in conjunction with exhibit. For more information about the exhibition, visit www.downtowndayton.org or call the Downtown Dayton Partnership at (937) 224-1518.