Writer: Brittany Brooke Crow
Images: Leo Villareal (Mexican American, born 1967), “Evanescent Field,” 2025. Images courtesy of Joshua Ford, Figge Art Museum, © Leo Villareal
As the sun set on a cool spring evening in Davenport, hundreds gathered outside the Figge Art Museum, eyes fixed on its glass façade. Artist Leo Villareal began counting down: “Three … two … one!” An unseen technician pushed a button, and the crowd erupted in applause as the building burst into light.
Touted as the largest public art installation in Iowa, “Evanescent Field” marks the completion of a 10-year project by Villareal, a 20-year vision of lighting the building and the Figge’s 100th anniversary. The artwork measures nearly a mile in linear feet. It activates all four sides of the museum with more than 1,000 full-color LED lights, bathing the building in color patterns programmed never to repeat.
VISION IN COLOR AND MOTION
Inspired by color field painting, general patterns in nature and the rhythms of the nearby Mississippi River, Villareal created “Evanescent Field” exclusively for the Figge Art Museum. He chose the name to emphasize the artwork’s ephemeral quality.
“Evanescence has to do with the threshold of perception and waves of light that are constantly appearing and then disappearing and fading into another,” Villareal said. “The atmospheric conditions will change the piece as well and become players in the whole opera that’s occurring here.”
Countless colors ripple and swell across the building’s surface, creating an experience that shifts with both the environment and the viewer’s perspective. Up close, the hues feel soft and airy, like pastel washes; from a distance, they sharpen and grow more vivid, transforming the Figge’s glass walls into a dynamic canvas of light.
Based in New York, Villareal is known for creating monumental light installations, such as “Illuminated River” (2021) across nine of London’s bridges on the River Thames, “The Bay Lights” (2013) on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge and “Multiverse” (2008) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
“Evanescent Field,” which was unveiled in May, is Villareal’s first public art installation in Iowa.
“There are certain moments where you see the motion of the river, this back and forth,” the artist said. “It looks one way close up, but when you cross over to Illinois and you see it from the other side, there’s this other layer of activation that’s happening with these big gestures of light moving up and down and across.”
A BUILDING AS CANVAS
Built in 2005, the Figge Art Museum’s current home was one of British architect David Chipperfield’s first commissions in the United States.
“When Sir David Chipperfield designed the Figge Art Museum, the dream was to have its glass façade illuminated, casting an inviting glow over the entire community,” said Melissa Mohr, the Figge’s executive director and CEO. “With the unveiling of Leo Villareal’s ‘Evanescent Field,’ we fulfilled that original aspiration.”
A common thread in Chipperfield’s architectural vision and Villareal’s light-based artwork is a deep commitment to the community. According to Joshua Johnson, one of the museum’s curators, Chipperfield worked closely with local stakeholders to ensure the building served not only as a home for art but also as a space for people to come together.
“He was very interested in the role that museums play in the Midwest, as opposed to what they play in Europe,” Johnson said. “Museums in the Midwest are also community centers and gathering points. They serve many functions.”
The Figge’s structure supports this vision. With four floors of varying heights and nine exterior catwalks encased in glass, the building was designed to engage the city around it. During the day, the façade alternates between reflecting the streets of Davenport and revealing glimpses of the museum’s interior.
“One of the most distinctive features of the Figge is this double-glass wind curtain wall,” Johnson said. “Chipperfield really wanted to make this semi-permeable space. He wanted to bring the outside in.”
The Figge is one of two Chipperfield projects in Iowa. The other is the Des Moines Public Library’s Central Library downtown. It was completed in 2006 and features copper mesh within its glass walls to blur the boundaries between interior and exterior in a similar way.
FROM IDEA TO ILLUMINATION
Artwork on the scale of “Evanescent Field” requires extensive collaboration. Ten years ago, former Figge director Tim Schiffer contacted Villareal’s gallery and invited him to Davenport to explore the site. Soon, others joined discussions to dream up possibilities.
“These artworks take thousands of hours of meetings and conversations,” said Amy Critchett, the artist’s executive producer. “The human interaction is such a vital part” of the process.
The project spanned the tenure of three executive directors at the Figge, involved lighting tests with multiple manufacturers and required major fundraising to bring the $4 million installation to life.
“We’re very conscious of the generosity of everyone it takes to raise that money, to maintain these artworks,” Critchett said. “It’s an ongoing relationship.”
Along with individual donor support, “Evanescent Field” received a $1.6 million grant through the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s Destination Iowa Creative Placemaking Fund, plus contributions from Davenport’s Regional Development Authority and the Bechtel Charitable Trusts.
DESIGNING FOR LIGHT
Lighting designer David Raver, now a senior partner at RDG Planning and Design in Des Moines, first met Villareal while working as a lighting sales representative.
“The Figge had heard what Leo was doing in London on the bridges, and so they brought the two of us together,” Raver said, referencing the River Thames project.
Raver identified three primary considerations in the design for “Evanescent Field”: optics, environmental conditions and resolution.
The first challenge was physical: how to evenly illuminate each glass plane framed by the building’s nine catwalks. While most of the Figge’s catwalks are 12 feet tall, the top spans only 8 feet, and the bottom stretches to 16. This variation in height initially made it difficult to achieve a consistent wash of light across the structure.
The second challenge was environmental. Raver likened the space between the double glass curtain walls to a desert — intensely hot and devoid of humidity. During the day, the interior could reach temperatures as high as 175 degrees Fahrenheit, cooling only slightly by night. He needed fixtures that could not only survive those extremes but also function flawlessly within them.
The third challenge was the resolution Villareal’s team required to create the desired effect of colors sweeping smoothly across the building’s exterior. “Some of the movement that he has created is so subtle and soft because he’s changing the color of every foot of fixture,” Raver said.
While those challenges were the primary concerns, they weren’t the only factors to consider. One of the initial fixtures the team tested was too large and cast a dark silhouette when viewed from outside the building. Complicating matters further, the glass contains ceramic frits — thin, striped patterns to reduce glare from direct sunlight. However, the frit treatment wasn’t applied uniformly across the facade, which introduced another variable in how light would interact with the surface. Inside the catwalks, the team also had to preserve enough space for maintenance crews to safely position the ladders they use for cleaning the windows.
Villareal described the project as a long journey. “We have a lot of projects that take years and years and years to realize, but it’s worth it,” he said. “We have incredible technology in 2025 that we didn’t have 20 years ago. It didn’t exist. So it’s kind of the perfect moment.”
Raver echoed this sentiment, noting how the passage of time benefited the public art piece. “It was almost a happy accident that while we were working on different solutions, the industry itself was evolving and coming out with better, more reliable products that would reduce our electrical costs to the Figge and our installation costs,” he said.
ILLUMINATING THE FUTURE
So after 20 years of dreaming and 10 years of creative problem-solving, the project finally came to life with the flip of a switch. Every night since, from sunset to sunrise, “Evanescent Field” bathes the Figge in a vibrant glow.
Mohr, the Figge’s CEO, calls the installation a powerful testament to the museum’s mission to connect art and community. “Just as the Figge’s collection was founded with an initial gift, ‘Evanescent Field’ is a new gift to the community and to future generations,” she said. “We’re excited to move into this next phase and start living with the piece.”
Sol Lewitt, “Tower”, 1984. Photo: Wikimedia.
AN ARTIST’S ARTIST
During Leo Villareal’s frequent visits to the Figge Art Museum, one particular artist’s work caught his eye. Sol LeWitt’s 21-foot-tall concrete “Tower” (1984) stands outside the main entrance. A similarly striped mural (1983-1984) graces one of the museum’s stairwells.
“I feel a real affinity with Sol LeWitt and his work with systems and rules,” Villareal said.
Brittany Brooke Crow of Des Moines is a freelance writer, photographer and Iowa Arts Council Artist Fellow.
