Got your holiday pine yet? This post is dedicated to all those tree martyrs that are annually chopped down, thrust into our homes, and garlanded with festive objects so we can celebrate Christmas, the Russian New Year, or a revived Pagan ritual. Though trees get special attention at this time of year, they are something of a powerful theme for many artists. Let’s take at tour of the arboreal obsessions and notable tree cameos in art history, with a few contemporary takes thrown in to spice things up. Our journey begins with the most perfect mulberry tree in the world… according to Van Gogh. Read More »
Reporter Carol Vogel wrote last week in the New York Times about an upcoming Antony Gormley public art residency with the Madison Square Park Conservancy. All well and good: Gormley is bringing his nude sculptures in multiples to the environs of the park on 23rd Street. He’s a Turner Prize winner. He’s fresh off a living art project in London’s Trafalgar Square. He’s a finalist in some big secret project for the 2012 Olympic Games. But why, according to Vogel, is his commission any less “improbable” than other recent New York showings from the likes of Roxy Paine, Olafur Eliasson, or Christo and Jeanne-Claude? And what, really, should we expect or demand from the realm of public art?
Roxy Paine creates stainless-steel trees, faux fields of poppies and mushrooms, and robotic machines that make monochromatic art.
Studying nature intently, Paine turns reproductive and developmental patterns into an understandable language and growth process that can be recreated by both man and machine. The conflicts between these two approaches give his art an existential edge that questions the relationship between nature and technology, while providing exciting new results. Read More »
This summer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art invited Brooklyn based artist Roxy Paine to design a site specific installation in The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. In keeping with the garden’s aboreal surroundings, Paine has installed a variation on his classic stainless steel defoliated trees. For the rooftop installation Paine has situated each tree that comprises the small copse sideways, as if blown over by a strong gust of wind. Fittingly, Paine has titled the piece Maelstrom. (The Met’s rooftop bar is also serving a cocktail of the same name.)
