project overview

THE WANDERER | Renasant Convention Center Atrium

UAC partnered with the City of Memphis and the Renasant Convention Center Board of Commissioners to produce a large-scale sculpture in the main atrium that welcomes visitors to the renovated facilities. The convention center, formerly known as the Memphis Cook Convention Center, opened along the city’s riverfront in 1974. In 2019, the City embarked on a $200M modernization of the convention center that totally transformed the footprint of the space, which now features hotel-quality finishes and amenities throughout. The reimagined facility also showcases an impressive art program featuring all Memphis-based or adjacent artists.

“The stacking of the layers in space reveals the surprisingly dynamic and fluid nature of this vital natural resource.”

— ben butler

Ben Butler was selected from a pool of 132 artists from a national Call to Artists to develop a large-scale suspended sculpture for the main entrance. Butler’s piece focuses on the natural assets of the area including the Mississippi River, Mississippi Flyway, and a dense tree canopy. He created a 30 foot tall suspended sculpture that follows the shifting and meandering course of the Mississippi River over the past few thousand years. The sculpture consists of 30 layers of 1-inch thick acrylic, each presenting a snapshot of the river’s form at a different moment in history. These wandering ribbons, superimposed in three-dimensional space, and rendered in a translucent and luminous material, together present a dynamic sculpture that celebrates the vibrant and ephemeral nature of this powerful natural resource.

photo courtesy of Ben Butler

About the Artist

BEN BUTLER

Ben Butler is a sculptor and public artist working in Memphis, Tennessee, and Quoque, New York. His sculptures reflect the sensibility that objects are not fixed and finite, but are the product or residue of ongoing processes. They provide evidence of unseen forces, and they point to the distinction between the human and the non-human. Throughout the natural world, unexpected complexity emerges from simple, persistent processes. When the order of things is not readily apparent, complexity is often mistaken for chaos. In the rush to comprehend we often miss the wonderful unseen forces at work.