John Salvest
Towering over visitors at a height of almost seven stories, IOU/USA is comprised of 105 multi-colored steel shipping containers, stacked seven high and fifteen across. The containers will be used as mosaic tesserae, with “I O U” spelled out on one side of the massive structure, and “U S A” on the other. Developed over the course of the past year, this striking installation is unfolding in Kansas City at a moment of exceptionally divisive national politics and public discourse. Says Salvest of IOU/USA:
“The placement of the project near a regional branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, one of the main components of national economic policy, comes at a time when concern about the United States’ ballooning federal budget and foreign trade deficits is a major part of the national conversation. Its location between the Fed and the Pioneer Mother Memorial is also fitting in that, whereas the permanent public monument rightfully celebrates America’s and Kansas City’s triumphant past, the temporary public sculpture may generate meaningful discussion about where we, as a nation, are heading.”
Grand Arts Artistic Director and project curator Stacy Switzer describes how the project is designed to embrace a multiplicity of viewpoints:
“While some may interpret its site and orientation in proximity to the Kansas City Federal Reserve as a direct critique aimed at the activities of the central bank, others may view the project as a cathartic response—perhaps defiant, perhaps submissive—to the stresses of mounting personal debt which millions of us know intimately. Of course neither of these takes is exclusive of another, and activists of most any persuasion could read the work as a rallying cry for their own ideals. This multivalence is what makes IOU/USA so potent as a work of art in the public sphere.”
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