Cover Song (For Robert Cumming),
2026
I-Beams, steel sheet, glazed English porcelain, hardware, oil-based paint
100 x 96 x 141 inches
Lavender Country, 12333 Mackay street, Detroit, MI
Cover Song (for Robert Cumming), an I-Beam and steel sheet piano with a glazed ceramic keyboard, is my first permanent public work. It will reside in perpetuity in Detroit’s Lavender Country, a community garden, event space, and lavender field. Inspired by a maquette (1976) for an unrealized sculpture by the conceptual artist Robert Cumming (American, 1943–2021), this grand piano is both a static sculpture and dynamic performance space. The top can be raised or lowered, converting, and thus activating, the ‘instrument’ into a stage intended to host musical performers.
In my initial discussions with Lavender Country founder, Jeffrey Tranchell, he was insistent that I consider Detroit’s rich history for my contribution to this public space. Accordingly, we worked closely with local fabricators and artists to execute the piece, all of whom became critical partners when it was installed this June.
I had serendipitously found inspiration for my proposal two years earlier, in April 2025, when I successfully bid on a small sculpture at a regional auction house in Detroit. When it came time to claim my prize, I naturally called Jeff, who drove downtown to receive the tiny artwork, which fit within the palm of his hand. We learned that the sculpture had once been in the collection of Gil and Lila Silverman, important Detroit arts patrons, who had generously invited Jeff’s college art class into their home to share their collection. The maquette had been donated by the Silvermans’ to the Detroit Institute of the Arts, who had subsequently deaccessioned the artwork.
My sculpture was conceived as a realization of what Cumming had written on the back of his maquette: “model for a large I-Beam piano weighing close to a ton.” Fifty years after Cumming crafted his proposal, I have converted his player piano into a grand piano, and it has put on a few pounds in the process. A sort of “cover song,” or homage, to his original, we have metaphorically returned his work to Detroit, its first home, where it will hopefully stand for many years to come—not tucked away in a private collection or deep storage—but in a community garden where it can be enjoyed by everyone, anytime, day or night.
-David Kennedy Cutler