New artwork made from security mirrors in Piedmont Park triggers reflection
On the winter solstice, Dec. 21, Atlanta artist Gregor Turk, unveiled his newest public artwork “Myriad” on the edge of Piedmont Park.
Located near the entrance to Piedmont Park at 10th Street with a view of the Meadow and the midtown skyline, “Myriad” is in an ideal location to reflect the city, the park, and the community, Turk said.
The installation, at first glance, looks like a field of giant, mirrored lollipops. Thirty-six, round security mirrors the size of pizzas are installed on top of poles and arranged in a gentle arc across a patch of lawn.
The security mirrors are the type any urban driver is familiar with — the kind hung at the exits of parking garages to help cars avoid collision with passing pedestrians.
The installation includes 36 security mirrors (a nod to the 36 years Piedmont Park Conservancy has been stewards of the park) with three different sizes. Each size offers a different reflective perspective.
When a parkgoer stands in front of “Myriad” they might be captured by the image of themselves reflected in multiple mirrors, or perhaps be more taken by the motion behind them — dogs pulling on leashes, bicyclists cruising, runners trotting and meanderers passing by.
Other times, parkgoers might experience a less busy, more serene landscape, the mirrors reflecting the red bodies of flying cardinals, blue skies blotched by passing clouds or green limbs of breeze-blown trees.
If one thinks about it deeply, “Myriad” can produce conflicting interpretations, Turk said. The mirrors can be confining in the sense that they capture only a frame disconnected from the whole.
“The pieces can create a Swiss cheese effect … with negative spaces between,” said Turk.
Or they might amplify and broaden one’s perspective of the landscape by widening one’s view.
One might experience the uniformity of the circular mirrors, or they could feel the distortion of their refracted reflections.
Considering the mirrors are used as tools in security and surveillance, Turk notes, one might feel frightened, watched or voyeuristic, while others might feel the safety and security of expanded vision.
Each experience is valid.
“I aim to provide an observatory that allows for various, often conflicting interpretations,” Turk said. “ … That’s the great thing about public art — you put it out there and it gets interpreted in ways that I might not have even thought of.”
The fourth in a series
“Myriad” is the fourth public artwork in a series of related works that employ security mirrors.
The first, called “Phalanx,” was put up in a forested patch of woods along a trail at the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia on the North Carolina border. Turk put up 17 security mirrors at uniform height in a straight line directly along the border.
The piece was meant to confront viewers on their ideas about borders at a time when border security was central to political conversation.
The second, “Assembly,” was a commissioned piece for the Druid Hills Presbyterian Church on Ponce de Leon Avenue across the street from the Majestic Diner. This version arranged 33 security mirrors both high and low in an arc. Their positioning provided a sweet spot where one “could see themselves as many times as there were mirrors,” Turk said.
The third, “Arena,” was installed at Goat Farm Arts Center. The mirrors were arranged, arena-style, in a complete circle, which produced a more jarring, if not threatening experience, being trapped or dizzied by the installation’s 360-degree inward reflection.
For “Myriad,” Turk wanted to “go back to that open, more celebratory configuration” of the gentle arc.
Susan Antinori, president of The Antinori Foundation, saw Turk’s “Phalanx” when it was installed at the Hambidge Center in 2017. The foundation financially supported the installation of “Myriad” in Piedmont Park.
“Piedmont Park is part of my daily life, and I’ve always been inspired by the way people connect with the space,” Antinori said in a press release. “After seeing ‘Phalanx,’ I knew (Turk’s) work would be a beautiful fit for the park. When he showed me how ‘Myriad’ would reflect the city skyline, it was an instant yes.”
Turk’s areas of inquiry
For the past decade or so, Turk’s work has been influenced by his fascination with surveillance. Atlanta, he points out, is the most surveilled city in the United States.
“I am not denying the needed security that surveillance devices provide, but I am concerned with their ubiquity, invasiveness, and the hazards of how welcoming we have been with them,” Turk said.
In 2023, Turk installed “Welcome” at the Georgia Museum of Art. The 29-foot-tall installation was comprised of 77 security cameras arranged to spell the word “Welcome.”
“It’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek or oxymoronic,” Turk said.
Prior to his interest in surveillance, Turk had a longstanding interest in maps, landmarks and pictography.
As a young boy growing up in Atlanta, Turk collected maps and charted his bicycle routes across the city. His rides led him to discover “phantom streets” — streets marked on the map that did not exist in the real world. Those streets, he later learned, were an old mapmaker’s trade secret — to include non-existent streets on a map so that if copied, the mapmaker would know. This discovery further fueled his interest in maps and place markers.
Turk’s been known to photograph blank billboards representative of undesirable parts of town, and collect pictographs from around the world.
All these interests are “innate” Turk said, and have found their way into his art.
Atlantans may be most familiar with Turk’s work at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. His 86-foot-long ceramic tile installation “Latitudes and Legends” has been installed in between gates E 33 — 36 since 2004.
The long, narrow map looks at the geography between the 30th and 35th parallels (roughly Georgia’s north and south borders) circling the globe. Atlanta appears twice, at the left and right ends of the map, with all the world’s geography in between.
At another airport, Jacksonville International in Florida, Turk’s work can be spotted decorating a pair of restrooms with gender pictograms found around the world.
“I’ve gravitated toward public art as a way to accentuate or reiterate a sense of place,” he said. “I don’t think you can create a sense of place. I think you can reinforce it.”
This was one of Turk’s goals with “Myriad.”
“Reinforcing a sense of place,” he said, “providing a context, and enhancing a space, are some of the desired outcomes of ‘Myriad.’”
If you go
“Myriad” is located near the Meadow entrance to Piedmont Park at 10th Street and Charles Allen Drive. It will be installed indefinitely.
About the Author
