ART ON THE HILLS

ST. LOUIS -- The green meadows and rolling hills in Laumeier Sculpture Park would be gorgeous enough without the 88 works of art that seem to have grown from the landscape.

People stretch out on blankets and read or they play Frisbee or games with bats and balls. Families with strollers walk the trails that connect the sites where some of the world's most acclaimed artists have installed works. The scene itself is surreal.

The art is an eclectic mix of whimsy and monolithic seriousness. It includes "Rolling Explosion," a large work that looks like a child's toy with its wooden beads and wheels on a trick,

The most monumental work in the sculpture park is a modern Stonehenge of huge red metal tubes sitting atop the park's highest hill. Some of the tubes are battered, some splayed in different directions.

More than 375,000 people visit the park every year. Braille and small-scale models of several of the works makes the collection accessible to people whose sight is impaired.

The park was created in 1968 when Mrs. Henry H. Laumeier honored her late husband by bequeathing 72 acres to the St. Louis County Department of Parks and Recreation. The park now extends to 98 acres and includes a museum gallery and a camp where educational programs are conducted.

Besides changing exhibits in the museum gallery, the park offers fairs and festivals throughout the year. The Laumeier Contemporary Art Festival begins today and continues Saturday and Sunday. Hours are 4-8 p.m. today, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. There is an admission charge.

The Laumeier Rhythm & Blues Concert is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. May 26.

"St. Louis Bones" by Robert Stackhouse is a long, skeletal form that, as the placard informs, "evokes the hull of an old boat.

"It calls up the conception of boat' as both physical and psychic transport between continents, over mystical seas, from this world to the next."

"Face of the Earth" by Vito Acconci is a form sunk into the ground. Visitors can step down and get a feel for this work of art from inside.

Charles Grinnever's "Crete" evokes canopies.

There is a mosaic lion and a mosaic cat with a blue head.

One square sculpture appears almost like cemetery plots with eerie rusting figures inside.

Mary Miss' "Pool Complex: Orchard Valley" is a pine, stone and concrete creation covering one acre of the park.

An untitled Donald Judd work is a collection of concrete walls that form geometric shapes.