R.I. Convention Center renovation plans don’t include this 3,000-pound sculpture

A food court at the Rhode Island Convention Center is shown in the foreground with the 3,000-pound glass sculpture ‘Fresnel Ring,’ by New York City artist James Carpenter seen hanging from the ceiling in the background. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

The third-floor rotunda at the Rhode Island Convention Center is going to get a makeover in the next few years. But absent from the revamp will be a sculpture made of glass shards that’s hovered above the lobby for nearly three decades.

The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) voted Monday to approve the permanent removal of “Fresnel Ring” by James Carpenter, which cost $380,000 when it was commissioned and installed in 1996. A planned renovation of the open space that would create a new meeting area for convention goers and guests requires the removal of the 3,000-pound sculpture.

The renovation is part of an attempt to modernize the convention center that also includes updating the fifth floor ballroom and meeting rooms and replacing fire alarms, at a total estimated cost of $8.9 million, according to preliminary numbers from a Rhode Island Convention Center Authority document from February 2023.

The costs to remove the 3,000-pound sculpture haven’t been determined yet, said Rhode Island Convention Center Authority Executive Director Daniel McConaghy in a phone interview Monday. 

Carpenter’s work was approved by a state review panel in 1994, the Providence Journal reported then, after a lengthy selection process to decorate the then-new convention center with public art. RISCA manages the process of public art installations for state buildings or renovation projects that cost over $250,000, as state law allocates 1% of a project budget for public art. So RISCA was also tasked with approving the sculpture’s deaccession.

“We’re going to fill that with a floor and put the meeting space bar, gathering space, serve food — more of a meeting pub type space,” said McConaghy. “One of the things that more newly designed convention centers have is a focal point. A place where conventioneers, exhibitors, people who are meeting can say, ‘Hey, meet me at so-and-so spot. We’ll grab a beer or connect in a relaxed setting.’ And we don’t have that anywhere in the convention center at all.”

RISCA Executive Director Todd Trebour said Monday that the renovations are planned to begin sometime between March and May 2025, and that the Convention Center Authority is responsible for the costs of the sculpture’s removal.

Detail of ‘Fresnel Ring,’ a public art commission made of glass blades and wire that was installed over the Rotunda Lobby of the Rhode Island Convention Center in 1996. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

McConaghy said a representative for Carpenter will first visit the site and see if the sculpture is worth preserving. If so, the floor might be built out first so that the sculpture is easier to uninstall. 

“You have to do it very methodically and reverse the process of it going in,” McConaghy said. “I forget the actual number of how many glass pieces there are, but there’s a lot…To take them out individually, protecting them, then boxing them up and shipping them —  there’s a lot of thought that needs to go into it.” 

A Providence Journal article from 1996 reported that “Fresnel Ring” is made of 250 glass pieces, meant to resemble the Fresnel lenses used in lighthouses. The sculpture is suspended from the ceiling with wire.

McConaghy said that from initial glances, the sculpture seems to be in good shape and is likely worth preserving. Both McConaghy and Trebour said the artist is interested in taking the sculpture back. Carpenter was unavailable for comment Monday afternoon. A representative at his New York City studio said he was traveling.  

But Carpenter did tell the Journal in 1996, “I think people will find [the sculpture] very intriguing over a long period of time…You can’t always predict exactly how something like this is going to work.”

Carpenter, a 1972 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, secured the commission award over a glass chandelier proposed by his former teacher, Dale Chihuly — among the most celebrated glass artists in the world, thanks to his oeuvre of monumental glass sculptures, many of which are ceiling-suspended.