Year 1993 (1993) Created 1993 | Artist Sheila Klein | |
 | ||
Vermonica is a public art installation initiated by artist Sheila Klein in 1993. The sculpture is named for the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood. Some of the artwork's 25 lamp poles date to 1925, the year Los Angeles's Bureau of Street Lighting opened. Placed in front of a Rite-Aid, the lights glow to illuminate the mini-mall parking lot it is located in at specific times during the night. Sheila Klein cooperated with Los Angeles businesses, bureaus, departments and neighborhoods to erect what she describes as a "formal composition" and a "drive-in museum" of street lighting. Vermonica was envisioned initially as a temporary installation with borrowed poles from the nearby streetlight yard on Santa Monica Boulevard. The sculpture was so popular, however, that it was kept installed. Vermonica precedes Chris Burden's Urban Light by 15 years.
