Four Corners Project - A conceptual sculpture spanning the globe. The project was begun in 1979 and completed in 1985 and consists of an invisible tetrahedron inside the earth with its four corners protruding the surface at Easter Island, New Guinea, South Africa and Greenland. During the five-year project he traveled to each location and installed a marble pinnacle at the exact location of the apexes where the planes meet. The project provides a cultural, geographic, spiritual and aesthetic metaphor and references the Plutonic Solids. Barr describes The Four Corners Project as “an act of constructive creation that has at its core a faith in humanity and a confidence that when we are united by the arts, the world community is most loving, most, sane, and most human”
Sunsweep - A series of sculptures that form an imaginary arc spanning the North American continent from New Brunswick to Roberts Point, Washington. “Sunsweep” commemorates the longest peaceful border in the world. Each sculpture is positioned in a place that can only be reached over land by traveling both through Canada and the US. Each sculpture is positioned to reflect the position of the sun as it passes from east to west from dawn to noon to dusk. “It [Sunsweep] is, as are all of David Barr projects, breathtakingly creative…representing and symbolizing the cohesiveness of the U.S. and Canada.” U.S. Senator Carl Levin, 1985
Arctic Arc - Consists of two complementary sculptures creating an invisible arc across the Bering Strait. In Alaska a sculpture of wood and steel suggests both the frame of a ship and a human hand with a dove rising from it. The corresponding sculpture in Russia again uses both the ship and the hand motif. In Arctic Arc Barr asks the viewer to contemplate the significance of a place where humans first entered North America.
Representative Public/Monumental Sculptures
Coasting the Baseline, Farmington Hills, Northville, Novi, Southfield, MI 2013-2015
Men-an-Tol, 900 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago IL: 2007
Dawn, Warren Civic Center, Warren, MI: 2006-2007
Vault, Columbus State College, Columbus: OH 2006
Sonata II, Schoolcraft College, Livonia: MI 2005
Transcending, Labor Legacy Project, Hart Plaza, Detroit, MI: 2002-2003
Morning Gate, Milsapp College, Jackson, MS: 2002
Strata, Krasl Museum, St Joseph, MI : 2002
Synergy, Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI 1999
Source, Detroit Zoo Wildlife Interpretive Center: 1995
Soaring, Bishop Airport, Flint: MI 1994
Blue Arc, Hoffman Corporation, Appelton, WI: 1989
Polaris Ring, State of Michigan Historical Museum, Lansing, MI 1988
Sunset Cube, Meadowbrook Sculpture Garden, Oakland University, Rochester: MI 1981
Crystal Transformation, Macomb Community College, Warren, MI: 1976
Structuralist Transformation, Fairlane Town Center, Dearborn MI: 1976