The collection of outdoor sculpture in New York City is said to be the "greatest outdoor public art museum" in the United States of America. With works from such great sculptors as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French and John Quincy Adams Ward, over 300 sculptures are found on the streets and in parks across the New York metropolitan area.
Three sources confirm: this bronze raven sculpture in front of the subway station on 73rd Street and Broadway was facing in the other direction as of last week.
More Peter Woytuk sculptures near subway stations on Broadway.
http://www.westsiderag.com/2011/12/0...our-public-art
Hope this trend doesn't start up NYC ...
Barbara Hepworth sculpture stolen from London park
THE GUARDIAN
Two Forms (Divided Circle) by Barbara Hepworth
which has been stolen from Dulwich park.
Photographs: Southwark council and Trevor Moore
A heavy bronze Barbara Hepworth sculpture that has been on show in Dulwich park for more than 40 years has been stolen overnight by suspected metal thieves.
Staff at the park in south London were confronted by an empty plinth on Tuesday morning. The thieves apparently drove up to the sculpture after gaining entry by breaking the padlock of the park's Queen Mary gate which leads straight on to the South Circular road.
Rising prices for copper, lead and bronze have triggered a huge increase in metal theft nationally, whether from railways lines, buildings or works of art. The Metropolitan police set up a taskforce to deal with the incidents this week ...
They already do at construction sites.....
The fantastic Tom Otterness sculptures "Time and Money" that were installed at the Hilton Times Square back in 2000 have been removed, now replaced by deadly dull light boxes in white glass. The future of NYC is being written, and it's banal as all hell.
What was, but are no more:
That ROTS...I walk by there all the time and they were fun to look at
Where did the original go?
And is there a shot of the "after"?
glad you can- i can't, whats there now screams the name even less ( much cheaper looking)can see why. It does not scream the name of the place.
a loss for everyone- including the Hilton
A Hilton employee told me yesterday that the pieces have been returned to the artist and that they might be installed somewhere outside the city. He didn't have much info.
As to how the new signage out front of the Hilton looks now, it's as banal as this (imagine the logo on the face of a generic white glass box over the street):
Scum, I thought the second WAS the actual pic... until I looked closer (I could not see the dark shapes against the dark BG...).Originally Posted by scumonkey
glad you can- i can't, whats there now screams the name even less ( much cheaper looking)
a loss for everyone- including the Hilton
Even that light box could probably have been improved, but why they decided to get rid of the clock, I really do not know. The point is to get your attention, in a good manner, and then tempt you to either go there, or "go there next time". If people want cheap, there are plenty of "NYC cheap" Kaufman designs to satisfy that misplaced frugality.
The clock, the bronze, the sculptures, the fun...all gone.
Instead they opted for ULTRA chi...i mean cheap and boring.
And even more banal on the 42nd Street side. Hilton probably figured that simple white would stand out amidst all the other TS signage. It does, but zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
They want to compete with the Kaufman masterpieces!
June 19, 2012, 4:31 pm
Exiled From Times Square, Rambunctious Sculptures Seek a New Home
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Times Square dazzles, but it is short on pure delight.
Daniel Aubry
They even seemed to be holding up a column, as tiny tourists snapped their picture
That is why the entrances of the Hilton Times Square on West 42nd Street and West 41st Street were such a treat: a small army of imaginative bronze figures by the sculptor Tom Otterness clambered over the canopies, under the columns and around the facade.
As at other installations of Mr. Otterness’s playfully subversive sculpture — in the 14th Street station on the Eighth Avenue subway line and in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Jr. Park at Battery Park City — the 60 or so little humanoids at the Hilton looked like hybrids of bowling pins and the Pillsbury Doughboy.
In the Hilton’s group, titled “Time and Money,” they assumed the guise of tourists and police officers and moneybag-wielding plutocrats whose frenetic interactions defied the propriety of the architecture. While one couple danced happily away on the edge of a giant clock face, for instance, others seemed to be laboring below to push the clock off the canopy on which it was poised.
But a few months ago, as the front of the Hilton went under the knife for a makeover, the sculptures were removed.
And as the renovation of the hotel nears completion, it has become clear that the Otterness figures are not coming back.
To be frank, a subtly scaled and static work like “Time and Money” was no match for the overblown, kinetic signs of the other businesses near the hotel’s main entrance at 234 West 42nd Street. Sunstone Hotel Investors, a real estate investment trust in Aliso Viejo, Calif., which bought the Hilton in 2006 for $242.5 million, wanted to make its property stand out more.
David W. Dunlap/The New York Times
In place of the Otterness figures on West 42nd Street are illuminated panels that change colors.
Robert Braun, a principal in Arianna Braun Architects, whom Sunstone hired to renovate the hotel, said that when he arrived for his first meeting with the new owners, he could not even find the understated entrance. And this despite the fact that he is a great admirer of Mr. Otterness.
The architects’ solution was to illuminate almost every vertical surface around the entrances to the hotel. They used aluminum-framed panels of laminated glass. The inside of the glass is cast in a rough, crystalline surface to refract the red, blue and green LED nodes behind it. Though each node can be set differently, the facade will usually be lighted in a solid-color, a pastel, that changes constantly but slowly. The gentle rhythms and hues are meant to compete and also contrast with the frenetic surroundings.
There was no room in this new design for the Otterness ensembles, which were commissioned in 2000 by Forest City Ratner Companies, the hotel’s developer, in consultation with the Public Art Fund. They are indivisible and site specific. It would have been aesthetically pointless and artistically indefensible to isolate a few figures and stick them on the new facade. The entire composition had to go.
Where? In storage for now.
“We’d love to find a home for it,” said W. Guy Lindsey, senior vice president for design and construction at Sunstone, which intends to donate the work, not sell it.
Arianna Braun Architects “Couple Squeezing Moneybag.”
A couple of catches: the recipient must be a public institution, like a high school, a college or a park department.
Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Braun said it was important that Mr. Otterness agree with the choice of the recipient and participate in whatever redesign might be necessary to accommodate the new setting. The recipient will be expected to pay the costs for cleaning, restoring, redesigning and reinstalling the piece; no small thing.
But they will get a full set of Otterness sculptures — “Rich Male Pushing Clock” and “Dancing Couple on Moneybag” and “Male Tourist With Suitcases” and “Female Cop With Flashlight” and many more. And a couple of very large clocks.
The Times Square Alliance was enlisted last year in the search for a new home for the figures. Acknowledging that the sculptures “were a delightful addition” to the district, Tim Tompkins, the alliance president, said, “We did not feel there was a clear path for us to take ownership of them or relocate them.” He said the alliance appreciated the owners’ relocation efforts and respected their “right to renovate their property as they saw fit.”
Susan K. Freedman, the president of the Public Art Fund, said through a spokeswoman that she had been brainstorming with New York City officials on possible relocation sites, but that the fund otherwise had no control or official role to play in the disposition of the works.
And the artist himself? He couldn’t have been more gracious. “I was really flattered to be out there on the scene of 42nd Street for 10 years,” Mr. Otterness said in a brief telephone interview from his Brooklyn studio. “Hopefully, it will find a new home.”
for more pics:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/exiled-from-times-square-rambunctious-sculptures-seek-a-new-home/
Socrates Sculpture Park Transformed Illegal Dump into Cultural Institution
By Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska
^^^ Before
Inaugural Exhibition, 1986; one of Mark di Suvero's sculptures
The opening of the exhibition, "Sculptors Working" on May 22, 1988
Outdoor Cinema, 1999
Civic Action, 2012
State Fair, 2009 Artwork by Emily Feinstein
Emerging Artist Fellowship 2008
LONG ISLAND CITY — When Mark di Suvero, a well-known abstract sculptor, moved his studio to the Hallet’s Cove area more than 25 years ago, the waterfront there was being used as an illegal dumping ground.
But for Di Suvero, the industrial wasteland seemed perfect for his large-scale work, involving I-beams and heavy steel. So he decided to clear out the garbage and turn it into an artistic space while tryingto engage the community in beautifying the area.
“People realized it was not only a detriment to their neighborhood, but also something that had potential for another use,” said John Hatfield, executive director of Socrates Sculpture Park, which is in the midst of a year-long celebration of its 25th year.
As part of the celebration — which will continue until September and included a party last Friday — park officials took a look back at the humble beginnings of the space and its transformation over the years.
Shortly after Di Suvero began displaying his work, another famous sculptor, Isamu Noguchi, moved his studio there and the two artists joined their visions to galvanize the effort.
The land was cleared with help from the community and di Suvero erected some of his sculptures in the open air. He asked his artist friends to do the same and called the park Socrates to honor the area's Greek heritage.
“It was a very organic beginning,” Hatfield said.
The inaugural exhibition was organized in September 1986, featuring one of Di Suvero's sculptures, setting the stage for more than two decades of outdoor exhibits.
Since its opening, the park — which is now full of flowers and trees — has hosted the works of about 900 artists — including Richard Nonas and Vito Acconci.
Today, it serves many purposes and is one of the most important cultural institutions in Long Island City, along with MOMA PS1, the Noguchi Museum and Museum of the Moving Image.
The most unique aspect of the park is the transparency of art creation, according to Hatfield. “Here, everything from the beginning, through the process, through the installation and the resulting work is open,” he said, adding that this model “creates the connection between the public, the artist and the art.”
The process presents a contrast, he said, with a typical “museum exhibition where the art appears in the middle of the night and then the curtains are pulled back as if magic has happened.”
To Cecile Chong, 48, a painter and sculptor, who was awarded an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park in 2011, working in an open studio was a new and precious experience.
She said that as she had worked on her installation, “Broken Cherries” - in which she “beaded” seven of the park’s cherry trees with natural and machine-made beads, depicting “cultural interaction through trade” — people “were asking her lots of questions.”
After a while, she said, she got used to the interruptions and became more friendly with the park’s visitors.
According to Chong, another unique part of working at Socrates was being surrounded by nature. “Trees are a very important part of my art,” she added.
Since its founding, the park has expanded its mission as a visual art organization, adding social and educational programming, including art making workshops, landscape and horticulture workshops, an outdoor international film festival, yoga and Pilates classes, a green market and kayaking classes.
It has also become a popular spot for people to get away. Asia Galej, 30, an Astoria resident, goes to the park often with her 13-month old son, Stefan. “We can sit on the grass, relax and enjoy the view,” said Galej, who has also attended art classes there.
The park's current exhibition, “Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City," tackles the issues of threats to access to green space and the waterfront area, how to protect the area’s natural resources and make it accessible to the community.
"It continues the discussion about the role of artists in development of the area that was initiated 25 years ago, but in the new context of its current redevelopment," Hatfield said.
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/2012...#ixzz1zuyOy4Bl
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