The Thin Blue Line – Public Art in Richmond

The Richmond Police Department Headquarters is located at 200 W. Grace Street, just a few blocks east of VCU’s Monroe Park Campus.  It’s a building like many other newer Richmond buildings, a fresh “New Gotham” kind of style.  It does have one very unique feature.  The eastern wall of the building is home to a 1300-pound, 12-ft. tall sculpture of a policeman’s head.

Luckily, the camera was invented some years ago, so that you don’t have to rely on my descriptive prowess to picture the large, basket-y, disembodied policeman’s head that hangs on the building.  It’s actually pretty neat – it’s made of interwoven bands of stainless steel that are arranged in such a way that light and shadow play terrific games within the mask-like face that represents Richmond’s finest.

The artist is Michael Stutz, a Tennessee native who developed his artistic style building parade floats in New Orleans.  He says that the policeman’s face represents an “everyman” while at the same time it represents a sort of solemn authority over the police department’s duty to the city.  The blue line running down the center of the sculpture’s face stands for the “dividing line between order and chaos,” a term that was created by policemen based on the fact that the police are “the men and women in blue.”  The original phrase is “the thin red line”, which refers to a famous British military stratagem used during the Crimean war.

The sculpture, a design that beat out 60 others, is very different viewed during the day and at night.  Go see it, and check it out both ways.  Here is a photo of it by day.

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