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Arts & Entertainment

Public Art Field Guide: Interplay

It's the art you wonder about while you down happy hour sake shots.

Just north of , amidst a small and simple concrete square, rises two twisting columns of metal, glaring in the sun. Occasionally, one might happen upon a lone tourist snapping photos of this unique statue, but mostly pedestrians pass right by, either oblivious to or confused by this shiny piece of public art.

"Interplay," as the dirty, aged plaque states, is a statue by renown artist John Safer. Safer is the Jerry Hairston Jr. of life: He does it all. You name a position, he plays it -- sports, politics, carpentry, theater, art, business.

But what lands Safer in this article is his knack for sculpture. Most of Safer's work is done in bronze and stainless steel, and most of his finished products look very similar to "Interplay." Safer believes that sculpture should capture the essence of something: an ice-skater, a rocket launching, a tree bending in the wind. Movement, shape and form, all boiled down to arrangements of lines in space.

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It is as the great Aristotle wanted it: forms in matter, spheres and lines, shapes in their most elemental existance, unadorned, unadulterated.

It is hard to imagine that a gaggle of rowdy Rosslynites, after a few too many sake bombs and tuna rolls, will stumble over to the base of Safer's "Interplay" and begin contemplating the essence of the universe. But Safer expects and strives for nothing less.

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The same ambition that has propelled him successfully through the world of finance, and enabled him to amass a sprawling estate in the countryside outside of Bethesda, Md., also pushes him as an artist. Since the early 1970s, Safer has racked up public works commissions like he racks up birdie putts on the course. (He is a successful and competitive amateur golfer.)

His work stands 75 feet tall at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. His work has been given to European royalty as a gift from the United States. You name it, John Safer has done it.

So while Monday Properties might be erecting the tallest building in Rosslyn, even such a giant structure will pale in comparison to the accomplishments of John Safer, who packs a mean, magical punch of artistic wonderment into his simple 18-foot "Interplay."

Arlingtonians are lucky to have such a magnificent work of art hiding humbly at the corner of an anonymous city block. Until next time, happy public art hopping.

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