MPR: Aldo's Ninth

Aldo's Ninth
By Euan Kerr
September 17, 1997

Most of us would be stumped if asked to quickly outline the borders of the 9th Federal Reserve District, but not Aldo Moroni. He has just finished a huge clay model of the entire 9th District to hang in the lobby of the new Federal Reserve Building in Minneapolis. He told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he wanted to create more than a map of the area, but something of the spirit of the upper Midwest.

Think about it too much, and the convolutions of scale of Aldo Moroni's sculpture "This River, This Place" can become mind-twisting. First of all there's the big stuff; it weighs 5,000 pounds.

Moroni: There are 280 blocks which comprise a 396 square foor ceramic mural, you could call it, or "bas relief" would be another word for it.

It's massive, but as the sun streams in the huge picture windows at the Federal Reserve Building, what also catches the eye are the tiny intricate nooks and crannies - clay-rendered landmarks of six states from Montana to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Moroni says the muted blues golds and other colors are the hues of the Midwest.

Moroni: There are a million details, and it depends on where you are looking. We have got St John's University here, just west of St. Cloud. The St. Cloud prison is in kind of a baby blue. We don't know how that happened (laughs).

The prison and the University may be large in some people's experience, but in Moroni's sculpture, they are just a few square inches of a work which stretches the entire length of one wall of the lobby.

Moroni: Everything is built on a real small scale, so, for instance, a silo on a barn might be one and a half inches tall. A watertower might be three inches tall. The Monticello fuel NSP plant - I think it's an NSP plant - it is six inches tall, the IDS is ten inches tall.

The piece is a huge jigsaw of fired ceramic, bolted and cemented to the wall. There's been talk of mounting a telescope at the far end of the lobby to allow visitors to pick out some of the details.

Aldo Moroni has been working on this piece for two years. The piece was commissioned under the "One percent for Art" program, where designers of federally funded buildings have to spend 1% of the construction budget on artworks. He says he wanted to create a piece which reflected the mission of the 9th Federal Reserve District, across the six states it serves.

Moroni: Those areas are linked by their industry that are basically lumber, mining, manufacturing, and agriculture are the keys.

Moroni and his team of seven assistants put in countless hours of research, and then countless more to decide what to depict in each area. Look carefully and its possible to find Lindbergh landing in Little Falls, the high bridge in Duluth, the big fish at Gaylord, by Mille Lacs.

Moroni: When we get out into the Red River Valley we show that particular area in flood, because the flood of '97 are the event of the century and you can see it as a tragic situation, or a triumphant situation. Whichever color you want to put on the story, it's a historical fact we dealt with.

Moroni likens building "This River, This Place" to making a quilt. Stand back and see the whole pattern; get close and delight in the intricacies. He talks about how first time visitors to the Federal Reserve lobby should be able to take it in in moments, but how he hopes it will retain the interest of people who work in the building for years or even decades.

Moroni: Over a long period of time, you should be able to get more depth from it. You should be able to see big ore trucks up on the Iron Range. Maybe you can start to find Father Hennepin coming round the corner in a canoe. You should be able to see the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior North Shore - you can start to pick up these things as you become more and more familiar with the piece.

But this work is ending now for Moroni. He says his emotional state is not that different from seeing a child grow and prepare to leave home.

Moroni: You are proud of the work you and the people who have worked on the project have done, you are happy, in this particular situation, with all the relationships with the people at the bank and the people you have worked with through the project. And then you are sad, because it is all over - technically I am unemployed (laughs).

The sculpture will be accessible to anyone who enters the lobby after the Federal Reserve Building officially opens in October. Perhaps with the idea of future employment in mind, Moroni points out the sculpture only covers the 9th Federal Reserve District.

Moroni: Whenever we got to the end - for instance, whenever it gets outside the 9th Federal Reserve District - we just cut it off. That's the end of the world. So I know people in Iowa will be mad at me, but they can order their own. If they want one they can call. (laughs).

Aldo Moroni's "This River This Place" will be on display during regular business hours following the opening of the new Federal Reserve Building in downtown Minneapolis on October 15th.

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