Alexander Calder Brightens up Some Midtown Green

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

It won't be long now until we have something fun and colorful dominating the lawn, but back in 1993, Alexander Calder's Big Crinkly did the trick. Following in the footsteps of earlier public art exhibits in the park, including Mel Chin in 1981, and George Rickey in 1986, Bryant Park Corporation (then, Bryant Park Restoration Corporation) installed a very colorful Alexander Calder mobile on the lawn in 1993.

Photo: BPC

It was only one year after the iconic bistro chairs and were added to the park, and the lawn is looking lush.This photo taken before photoshop and scanned from a slide, shows a very green lawn.

Photo: BPC

According to the Times, the sculpture was then owned by art collector Andre Emmerich, who was exhibiting it at a 150 acre sculpture park in Duchess County NY called Top Gallant.

To see more of Calder's work, visit the Calder Foundation website, or go to the open air museum Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. I highly recommend going there. The have a few Calders in their permanent collection, including the one pictured below, and it's a very nice escape from the city. 

Photo: A. Kumer

If outdoor sculpture gardens are your passion, check out this detailed listing by region and state.

George Rickey's Kinetic Art in Bryant Park

In 1986, kinetic sculptor George Rickey, installed six kinetic sculptures in Bryant Park. The exhibit was part of the Artists-in-Residence program sponsored by the Public Art Fund, Bryant Park Corporation (then, Bryant Park Restoration Corporation), and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. Like other artists-in-residence, Rickey was present for the installation, worked during daytime hours, and had helpers. The installation began on June 25, 1986.

Photo: BPC Archive

Photo: BPC Archive

Placed in different parts of the park, all six sculptures were on view until October 17, 1986.

Postcard: BPC Archive

At the time, Rickey had two concurrent exhibitions at the Maxwell Davidson Gallery, and the  Zabriskie Gallery. To see more of Rickey's work, check out his video of an installation at the McNay Art Museum in  San Antonio,Texas from 2008.

Public art projects in Bryant Park also include this 1981 exhibit by Mel Chin.

Public Art Transforms a Struggling City Park

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

Over the past year, Bryant Park has been the location of a few notable public art exhibits: Paul Ramirez Jonas' Key to the City, Kate Gilmore's Walk the Walk, and most recently, "Battle of the Brush." It's a long-standing tradition that many present-day park visitors may not be aware of. In 1980, the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, Public Art Fund, and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation collaborated to create an Artist-in-Residence program. The Artist-in-Residence program was one of several things park management did to infuse Bryant Park, then suffering from criminal activity and lack of use, with positive activity. The resulting spectacle increased pedestrian traffic and human presence in the park, and discouraged negative activity, such as drug use and vandalism.

Artists assembled their pieces on-site, where visitors were able to watch, ask questions, and in some cases, lend a hand with the installations. Exploring the theme of metamorphosis, visual conceptual artist Mel Chin, constructed his piece "MYRRHA P.I.A. (Post Industrial Age)" in the park, during the summer and fall of 1984.

Chin used  nineteenth century fabrication techniques to create a three-dimensional figurative sculpture of a female set on a wood pedestal, and placed in the center of the lawn.

The statue's two outer "skin" layers made of perforated steel, encased a skeleton made of polystyrene.

The piece was 30 feet tall, 6 feet deep, and 16 feet wide. "MYRRHA P.I.A." was completed, and unveiled on January 17,1985. It stood in the park until May 30 of that same year. 

In addition to Industrial Age fabrication techniques, Chin drew from  a nineteenth century engraving by French illustrator Gustav Doré. Chin's Myrrha is heavily based on Doré's engraving of Dante's portrayal of Myrrha in Divine Comedy. In Greek mythology, Myrrha disguised herself as someone else, tricked her father into an incestuous affair, as punishment was transformed into a tree, and, still as a tree, bore a son, Adonis. Doré's engraving shows Virgil leading Dante on a tour of the underworld, through the Eighth circle of hell, where Myrrha and other "falsifiers of others' persons" reside. For more on Dante, visit Danteworlds, an "integrated multimedia journey" through Dante's Divine Comedy.

Mel Chin continues to work and exhibit internationally.To see more of his work, click here, here, and here.

To learn more about Public Art projects in and around the city, visit the Public Art Fund, MAS NYC, and Creative Time. For more information of current public art exhibitions in New York City parks, click here.