Sculpture on the Streets of Manhattan

[ablarc]

^ A glum crew.

[infoshare]

A photograph depicting a Statue of Christopher Columbus: and Edward.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2346/chrisedvl4.jpg

[Ninjahedge]

How did Ed get up that high?

[Edward]

Sculptor Carole Feuerman at work. Chelsea. 12 Jan 2008.

[lofter1]

Great ^

For a few minutes I thought Feuerman was the brunette with the turquoise glove

[ablarc]

No, that's Julie Christie.

[brianac]

Stuck in Traffic? A Sculpture Park May Ease the Pain

Gabriele Stabile for The New York Times
The block on the north side of Canal Street near the Holland Tunnel in Manhattan where a sculpture park is planned.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: March 8, 2008

The words “sculpture park” bring the rolling expanses of Orange County to mind (Storm King Art Center) or, at least, the river’s edge in Queens (Socrates Sculpture Park). They do not instantly conjure up the traffic-jammed corner of Varick and Canal Streets.

Yet that is where New York’s newest sculpture park will be established: on a recently cleared block owned by the Episcopal Trinity Church, paralleling Juan Pablo Duarte Square on the Avenue of the Americas.

“When they’re idling in traffic trying to get through the Holland Tunnel, they’ll have something to look at,” said Maggie Boepple, the president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, which will curate the sculpture park on behalf of Trinity Real Estate, managers of the church’s extensive holdings downtown.
“It’s a tremendous gift to the city,” Ms. Boepple said.

Because Trinity has no current redevelopment plans for the 37,000-square-foot, trapezium-shaped site, it may remain a sculpture park until 2010 or 2011. “This is a temporary arrangement, but we expect it will be temporary for a couple of years,” said Carl Weisbrod, the president of Trinity Real Estate and a member of the cultural council board.

“We’re working hard to make the district as appealing and attractive as we can for tenants; for ourselves, frankly; and for the neighborhood, the community,” he added.

Trinity’s claim to the land dates to 1705, when the parish was granted a large riverfront farm by Queen Anne — “which, since I’m British, I really like,” Ms. Boepple said.

Adam G. Kleinman, a curator at the council, is working on the first show, which may open in two months. Ms. Boepple said a choice was imminent on the final selection of artists, whose works will probably be on display for a year or less. Though the parcel is not large, it is highly visible, sitting at a crossroads of Lower Manhattan.

“It’s going to be a very good sculpture space, but the pieces do have to be somewhat monumental,” Ms. Boepple said.

Trinity will be responsible for maintenance. Mr. Weisbrod said the park would be fenced so that it could be closed at night to safeguard the artwork. He said he did not anticipate controversy ensnaring the parish. “The content of these sculptures will be in keeping with the site and the neighborhood,” he said, “both in terms of scale and appeal.”

This being New York, the sculpture park may develop its own impassioned constituency, people who will hate to see it close when Trinity finally sends in construction crews.

“We want to make it very clear to the community that this is a temporary gift,” Ms. Boepple said. “That’s all it is. And I hope that’s respected so we can continue to do this elsewhere.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company.

[Edward]

Public Art in Rockefeller Center - Electric Fountain by Tim Noble and Sue Webster

[brianac]

Another great shot from Edward.

[AmeriKenArtist]

Hope to be there in Mid-April. I'd appreciate any Updates. Is Carole's work on public display in Manhattan?

[brianac]

Blue Sky on Canal Street

We offer four architects a fantasy job: a full block downtown, with no client to worry about.

By S.Jhoanna Robledo
Published Apr 13, 2008


The site today. Sculptures for the park, which is expected to exist for two or three years, will be chosen by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

The odd-shaped block at Canal and Varick Streets is, in some ways, an architect’s dream. Even the nearby Holland Tunnel entrance, nominally a downside, ensures that whatever goes up there will be visible on all sides. The owner, Trinity Real Estate, cleared the site earlier this year, and says it’ll be used as a sculpture park until plans firm up. (There’s already a small plaza next door, Juan Pablo Duarte Square, with a statue of the Dominican hero.) New York asked four architects to come up with ideas for the plot (which, we will admit, faces our offices). We required only that the result include a residential component and that it more or less meet zoning requirements.

Copyright © 2008, New York Media Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved

[lofter1]

Pictures from that article ^ are posted in the 417 Canal Street thread HERE

[Zephyr]

I have always supported outdoor sculpture in urban areas, even though I personally don't like some of it, and more than a few examples can be uninspired (at least from what I can make of it). At the end of the day, there is all the rest, that immeasurably add to the experience of walking amongst skyscrapers, into parks, near public fountains, on museum grounds, etc.

In Chicago, as in many places, there has been a multi-tiered plan of encouraging not only permanent and temporary outdoor sculpture, but also a category I shall term "transitional." Transitional sculpture is particularly intriguing in that it has a more extended stay in designated areas, but may disappear, be replaced with new sculpture, or move into the more desired status of permanent sculpture at the end of this stay, all based on community involvement. Individual artists have been divided on whether this is a "good thing" since it is art by popular reaction, rather than based on the proverbial "art for art's sake". But without taking sides as to whether this is good or bad on that level, I can point out that this is all voluntary, and serves an excellent narrow purpose of providing yet another avenue to expose art outside of the closed network of galleries or strictly driven city or private impositions as such.

Bravo to New York, Chicago, Montréal, Paris, Rome, Athens, and a long list of other cities, large and small, ancient and more recent, that continue to contribute to outdoor sculpture which enlivens our urban environments.

[brianac]

Bringing a Smile (Well, a Shine) to a Burdened Statue of Atlas

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
The Atlas at Rockefeller Center has years’ worth of lacquer and wax, in addition to the weight of the heavens, to bear. The four-story-high statue will undergo a six-week cleaning.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: May 4, 2008

Of course, he’s angry. Of course, he’s disheartened. The weight of all the heavens has been on his shoulders for 71 years and, according to the mythological timetable, he has exactly forever to go.

But only a close-up view of Atlas, at the base of the International Building in Rockefeller Center, reveals the powerful paradox of strength and despondency created by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan, the artists behind the four-story-high, seven-ton bronze.

That is because the statue, though structurally sound, has been caked over the decades with so much lacquer and wax that its surface has darkened and deadened. And so, therefore, has its character.

“Everyone reads the substance of things through the surface,” said Jeffrey Greene, president of EverGreene Painting Studios, which is about to begin a six-week cleaning of Atlas, down to the original patina. Mr. Greene believes it is the most ambitious conservation effort for the statue since it was installed in 1937, although it was regularly washed and waxed at least through the late 1980s.

Tishman Speyer, one of the owners of Rockefeller Center, would not disclose the cost of the latest cleaning.

A snapshot staple of any visitor’s souvenir New York album shows Atlas and the 21-foot-diameter armillary sphere on his shoulders (representing the heavens with which he was burdened by Zeus as a member of the losing Titan team), silhouetted in front of the twin spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral across Fifth Avenue. From that vantage, he appears none the worse for wear.

But examined as closely as the scaffolding that now surrounds it will permit, the statue’s surface is flat and dull. Details like the zodiac signs in the armillary sphere are flaking scabrously. Yet, it also becomes clear how much could be revealed with a cleaning.

“There is all this detail in the sculpture that was brought out by the patina,” Mr. Greene said. “It would have accentuated the chiaroscuro and shown the artists’ tool marks. It had a kind of luminosity.” And its muscle contours were in higher relief than they now appear to be. In terms that would make an art critic cringe, this guy’s six-pack abs are made of 18-ounce cans.

On Monday, Mr. Greene said, a translucent scrim will be wrapped around the scaffolding. After that, the statue will get a low-pressure steam bath.

Any residue will be cleaned with a gel solvent. A clear acrylic protective coating will be applied and the statue will be hand-waxed to a sheen that is more polished at sculptural highlights and flatter in the interstices.
One block south, Atlas’s popular brother, Prometheus (by Paul Manship), was restored nine years ago.

“What we try to do is keep track of the condition of the artwork and what needs tending to,” said Jerry I. Speyer, the chairman and chief executive of Tishman Speyer. “It’s a fascinating piece of what nobody sees but what you really have to do if you’re going to be a fiduciary for a place like that,” he said. And if you don’t take care of it, it’s going to show the effects.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/ny...l?ref=nyregion

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[The Benniest]

Public Art in Rockefeller Center - Electric Fountain by Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Absolutely wonderful shot. What talent you have.