Downtown parking lot gets Adickes aesthetic

The staggering amount of concrete in Houston — whether it's in the shape of strip malls, freeways, parking lots or society matrons' hair — is one of those things you learn to live with around here. A nice old building gets torn down to make way for a parking lot and we just shrug and say, "Eh, all in a day."

But now there's something new: an effort to install art in a parking lot. The art is David Adickes' "Looking Forward," which is now in its new home in a parking lot at Main and Leeland downtown. You may know Adickes from his 67-foot statue of Sam Houston in Huntsville and for his presidential heads at his First Ward studio, but "Forward" is smaller than that — a 20-foot statue of a woman on a 4-foot pedestal. Parking lot owner David Loftus installed it late last week, and people already dig it:

"It's gorgeous," passer-by Marie Rogers exclaimed Tuesday on spotting Adickes' newest artwork at Leeland and Main streets. "She looks so happy and contented."

"It's startling," opined another pedestrian, Ed Lowenberg. "This is such a barren part of town. It's a nice thing to walk by. It seems so friendly."

"It's so peaceful," said a third, Gene Moses. "She's so calm, so confident."

Adickes said the statue, modeled after actress Julie Burrows, is an attempt to make the contemporary art scene more elegant. Some contemporary artists might disagree with his technique — the art world hasn't always been kind to Adickes and his enormous concrete works — but Adickes doesn't mind. "It's in contrast to all that other K-R-A-P," he told the Chronicle. "It's an attempt to elevate aesthetics where it was 15 or 20 years ago. Aesthetics went out the window and it's looking to come home."

Decide for yourself if the statue works. It's easy to find, and hey, there's ample parking.