In Dallas, it is easy to miss Robert Irwin. The public work of the legendary installation artist, who died last week at 95, nudges more than provokes. Even when it is the central piece of a major public park.

Carpenter Park is the exclamation point of a renaissance of downtown public space, where green replaced asphalt parking lots. Irwin’s Portal Park Slice is a rust-brown steel wall that appears to cut through a mound of gras. It can also welcome you into an oasis among the concrete, or mirror some of the leaves that may fall on you from the nearby trees.

It all depends on where you stand. Irwin’s art plays with your idea of perception, how light and land can be seen differently by way of architecture.

Portal Park Slice was built in 1981, envisioned as an entrance into downtown by way of one of the country’s most significant modern artists. But, as is so frequently the case, the city of Dallas failed to take care of the piece in the old park, near the elevated highway on the east side of downtown. Amid a flurry of graffiti and general disrepair, the artist in 2013 told the Dallas Observer that his work “no longer exists” and was only a piece of “leftover steel.” Irwin approved its removal.

But the recent redesign of Carpenter Park brought about the recommissioning of the work. Irwin seemed energized by the idea, reconceptualizing a previous artwork to play with how we perceive a new piece of land. Slice now goes east-west instead of north-south, and a new panel of filigreed stainless steel includes cutouts of abstract shapes that look like the leaves that fall from the trees in the new park.

I enjoyed how landscape architect Mary Margaret Jones, who was part of a team that designed the park, described Irwin’s intent: “I’m repositioning the piece on the site and I’m repositioning the piece within the history of my own work.”

Or, how the New York Times obituary reflected on his work: “Mr. Irwin identified his goal — and the underlying goal of modern art generally — as awakening viewers’ powers of observation and concentration so that they become active participants in the experience.”

We have an incredible piece of public art in our downtown, made by an artist who wanted us to really look at where we are. That’s something to celebrate, and to remember.