Razing of artwork frames legal debate : Indianapolis’ decision to demolish sculpture, make room for development could provide test of unique federal law.

For eight years, on a triangular lot in a shabby neighborhood, an abstract steel sculpture was reflected in the adjacent canal, which in turn delivered sunlight to glint off the piece’s planes and edges.

Jan Randolph Martin, an artist, businessman and musician, regarded the creation as his masterpiece.

The Indianapolis municipal government saw “Symphony No. One” in a different light--as an impediment to plans to build new houses, apartments and condominiums with the canal as the focal point, in hopes of revitalizing a community northwest of downtown.

In July 1995, a demolition contractor hired by the city bulldozed Martin’s award-winning sculpture, selling the resulting scrap to a recycler and, in the process, setting off an important test of a federal law designed to shield artists’ work.

The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 was meant to give artists the right to maintain the integrity of their pieces even after ownership has been transferred--a concept that is entrenched in Europe but that has not been part of the American canon.

The law might have prevented, for example, the 1987 destruction of a piece of landscape art in St. Louis after the city, which commissioned the installation by Alan Sonfist, decided it was an eyesore that attracted vagrants.

Since its passage, the artists-rights act was invoked in two New York cases, but courts found that it did not apply for technical reasons. Art-law experts have now turned to Martin’s case as the strongest opportunity yet for the measure’s first use. Those interested in extending the act’s controls to cinema will be watching closely as well.

The Indianapolis government chose to fight Martin’s demand for $125,000 in damages. “It was his obligation to remove the sculpture,” said Brian W. Welch, a private attorney hired to represent the city. But Martin says he was never notified that the piece was coming down.

Now 48, Martin earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Purdue University and a master’s degree in painting from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He then embarked on the requisite New York odyssey.

Eight months in a TriBeCa loft, with no heat on weekends, persuaded him to take his wife and first baby back to his hometown.

He phoned his father, who was president of Tarpenning-LaFollette, a sheet metal manufacturer here, and asked for a job. The company makes everything from toilets for Amtrak trains to pyramid-shaped ornaments for the World Bank in Washington.

Surrounded by such products, Martin turned from painting to sculpting in stainless steel. Inspired by his love for playing violin, piano and guitar, he conceived of a monument in four sections, representing orchestral movements, with connecting cable to suggest an instrument’s strings.

In 1979, his model for the project won the $1,000 best-of-show prize at the Hoosier Salon, a prestigious juried competition.

The city granted a zoning variance allowing him to erect a full-scale version on land owned by Tarpenning-LaFollette. Approval was conditional: If redevelopment was proposed for the property, the city was to give “owners of the land and sculpture . . . 90 days to remove said sculpture.”

The family business donated $22,000 worth of material. Martin spent 2 1/2 years, on weekends and vacations, engineering and building the finished piece in the company workshop.

In July 1987, his wife and two sons helped him assemble Symphony No. One on what he hoped would be its permanent site.

There it stood, 40 feet high, 20 feet wide, 15 feet long, swaying gently when the wind blew strongly.

“I thought it was sort of neat to have that surprise there,” Martin said. “There were no signs, no arrows pointing. There weren’t throngs of people, but it was between two busy streets and I’d see cars stop and drivers get out to look.”

The city, however, had other uses in mind. As acreage was redeveloped, a fountain sprouted downstream in the water and developments with names like “Canal Overlook” and “Watermark” brought more affluent residents in.

Symphony No. One was not part of the vision. In 1993, Tarpenning-LaFollette agreed to a land swap with the city. The firm built a new headquarters on the South Side.

Martin was told, Welch said, that the new property owner would have no use for his sculpture. Martin contends that he was never informed that the piece would be destroyed.

For two more years, no danger loomed. Then, one summer day, Martin says, an employee mentioned that he had passed by the old place and the sculpture was gone.

He drove out to see for himself. He returned to work, but stopped by again on the way home. He sat at the wheel of his parked car and stared numbly at the vacant field. More than a year later, the lot is occupied by purple clover and yellow dandelion blooms.