While running in Prospect Park on Saturday mornng, I noticed what looked like a hut made out of tree branches. On closer inspection, I saw that it was a piece of art, which I liked very much. There was a sign that said the piece was created by Leonard Ursachi and is called Hiding Place. Here;s some information about the piece from the Parks Department.
Parks & Recreation, in cooperation with the Prospect Park Alliance, is pleased to announce the opening of Leonard Ursachi’s exhibition Hiding Place. The sculpture will be on view from May 5 through August 31, 2007 at the entrance to Prospect Park facing Grand Army Plaza (Flatbush Ave., Eastern Parkway, and Prospect Park West). There will be a press preview with the artist on Saturday, May 5, 2007 at 3:00 p.m.; following the press preview, there will be a public reception from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Hiding Place, a cylindrical bunker made from willow branches, is over 8-feet tall and 8-feet in diameter. The shelter has three “windows” with mirrors instead of glass.
“Because Hiding Place lacks a door and its windows are reflective shields, viewers can only imagine its interior,” said Ursachi. “It is a receptacle for imagining and the yearning through which its simple iconic form may shift from bunker to refuge to nest-home. With this sculpture, I continue my investigation of the world of porous borders, vulnerable shelters, and mutating identities that is the 21st century experience of home.”
“Just as the birds are busy weaving their nests, Leonard Ursachi’s own willow nest in Prospect Park inspires contemplation about the meaning of home,” said Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “Hiding Place’s placement in Grand Army Plaza, home to the Soldiers and Sailors monument, is fitting as the work also resembles a bunker thus furthering Ursachi’s examination of the shifting definition of a shelter.”
“Prospect Park is such a wonderful setting to display art,” said Prospect Park Alliance President Tupper Thomas. “Especially a work like this that references nature and engages viewers’ imagination. We’re very happy to host Ursachi’s sculpture.”
Leonard Ursachi, a Brooklyn-based artist, left his native Romania in 1980 and has exhibited his work internationally. This is his third public art project with Parks & Recreation. Ursachi exhibited an earlier version of Hiding Place next to a 15th century stone fortress in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains.
Parks & Recreation’s public art program has consistently fostered the creation and installation of temporary public art in parks throughout the five boroughs. Since 1967, collaborations with arts organizations and artists have produced hundreds of public art projects in New York City parks. The program includes approximately 20 temporary art installations per year in New York’s flagship and neighborhood parks, playgrounds, and traffic islands.
Subtle Matter
Exhibition duration: September 15 – November 4, 2007
Opening reception: Saturday, September 15, 6-9PM
pluto proudly presents Subtle Matter an exhibition featuring Kevin Auzenne and John Milton Ensor Parker, two Brooklyn-based artists who have known and influenced one another for the past 15 years.
Taken from the Buddhist concept of the links between mind and body, subtle matter is said to exist in the spaces between what is seen and what is not seen; mediating between what we see and hear and what we feel and experience as awareness. The abstractions of both artists seek to utilize this delicate gap between physical depiction and emotional response through the steady development of painterly laws and systems linked to the real, observable world.
The strategic use of materials is characteristic to both artists, and in his latest body of work, Parker employs sheets of aluminum left raw and inscribed with mathematical equations as a definitive, industrialized playing field–replete with rivet-like hex-bolts and multi-colored bands punctuating its surface. As a stark, contrasting element, Parker then drips and stains the pristine metal with various materials in an ode to fluid dynamic principles as not merely organic and contrary to its machined substrate, but more noble an aspiration to pursue. Through his background in mechanical engineering Parker actively engages a formal dialogue between what can be known scientifically and what is perhaps unknowable.
Having moved on from experiments with paintings on metal and plexi-glas, Auzenne’s current work on canvas steadily refines his on-going ‘Cascade paintings’ series. Begun in 2001, shortly after the attacks of September 11th, these dense collections of ink markings consistently pursue their own system of directionality. Conceived as a type of allegorical reference to our communal malaises (terrorism), Auzenne set his ‘communities’ into a suspended animation; the swarming trajectories of these colorful biomorphic signatures seem to be in a free-fall toward the bottom edge of the picture plane. Their respective ‘trails’ form as the puddled ink–allowed to dry a bit–is swiped away. The combination of traces form a vibrant swathe of multi-layered tissues creating a kind of compendium of discrete ink layers, like the stratifications of the earth on land.
Subtle Matter marks the second joint-exhibition of the works of Kevin Auzenne and John Milton Ensor Parker. The first exhibition, Steady State, took place in Tallahassee, FL in December, 2005.
Located on the outskirts of Prospect Heights a short walk from the Brooklyn Museum, pluto exhibits the work of emerging Brooklyn artists. pluto also promotes the curation of shows by established artists. In addition to the traditional gallery experience, pluto makes use of internet, video, and events to showcase and distribute artists. Hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 1-5PM.
pluto
730 Classon Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(646) 894-7777
http://www.plutonyc.com
Gallery hours: 1–5 PM, Saturdays and Sundays
Direction: Subway 2, 3, to Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum, east one block to Classon Avenue, turn left, go four short blocks.
http://www.johnparkerart.com
http://www.kevinauzenne.com
link to location map:
http://tinyurl.com/22226o