Studio Lot to Get Rainbow

As tribute to a far-off land heard of once in a lullaby, Sony Pictures plans to erect a permanent 94-foot-tall rainbow sculpture by artist Tony Tasset on the Culver City, Calif., studio lot where The Wizard of Oz was filmed over 70 years ago.

The corporation received approval from the city in May to install the structure, which the Culver City Times reports "will be about nine stories high and span 188 feet," near the studio's Madison Avenue gate.

The project will fulfill Culver City's Art in Public Places requirement, which requires that 1% of the budget for certain development projects be designated for public art. The budget for the sculpture is reported to be $1.5 million.

Tasset, whose works include Eye in Chicago's Pritzker Park and Paul Bunyan at Governors State University in Illinois, says the piece is intended to speak to "the sense of optimism and well-being associated with rainbows in general and more specifically with the rainbow in popular culture as imagined in the iconic Wizard of Oz film."

The nonilluminated structure is slated to go up in the spring of 2012.

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