Even under a sky darkened by clouds heavy
with rain, they’ll arrest your attention and keep you lingering
longer than you should. More than two dozen sculptures by Brooklyn
artists are now ensconced in Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park on
the East River as part of the 21st annual Brooklyn Waterfront
Artists Coalition sculpture show, "What’s Going On."
When you arrive at the park entrance, it’s hard to know where
to look first. The park is framed by the Brooklyn and Manhattan
bridges, the East River and the Manhattan skyline beyond, and
the large, brick Empire Stores warehouse walls with their arched
windows. Within these awe-inspiring boundaries, a sculpture has
a formidable job just to catch a visitor’s eye.
These works of art, curated by Ursula Clark and Richard Brachman,
are created from a variety of media: wood, cement, metals, plastic
sheeting, plastic grocery bags, tree branches and screens.
The curators chose "What’s Going On" as its theme "as
a way of encapsulating a broad range of artistic thoughts and
expressions about the world we live in today." And because
of the surrounding urban landscape, many are necessarily larger
than life.
"What’s Going On," on display through Sept. 14, has
overtly political works such as Brachman’s own "Drums of
War," a tower of black oil drums with painted skins tied
to their ends. Some of the skins trumpet anti-war quotations,
such as Simon Weil’s (1909-1943): "What a country calls
its economic interests are not the things which enable it to
make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international
conflict." Other skins are painted in imitation of Native
American textiles, a reminder of a whole race of people wiped
out by aggressors. The seven drums are bolted together and reach
skyward like an undulating plume of smoke.
Margaret Roleke’s "Fortified Home" brilliantly captures
the paranoia-fueled claustrophobia of post-Sept. 11 Brooklyn.
She has built a small white house, complete with brick welcome
mat, an American flag in the window, and "Beware of Dog"
sign in another, and then covered the entire structure in plastic
sheeting secured with duct tape.
All entrances and exits, doors and windows, are sealed behind
the sheeting, almost comically answering the question we all
had when officials advised us to stock up on plastic sheeting
and duct tape: how will we get out of our homes?
In a large clearing surrounded by picnic benches – the better
to take a seat and ponder difficult questions – are two sculptures
that address the role of religion in society. Kasra Paydavousi’s
"Prayer" is full of contradictions. From afar, the
sculpture looks like a man collapsed on his hands and knees in
anguish, with his head bent low.
On one hand, it is wrought from an organic material – flat, inch-thick
wood strips – and yet it is spray-painted with unnaturally bright
colors. His larger-than-life-size makes him appear formidable,
but the gaps between the thin strips imply vulnerability and
fragility.
Then, a large boat, visible through the sculpture, passes up
the East River and a squirrel startled by this visitor scurries
away.
Nearby, Miggy Buck’s optimistic work, "Victory Dance,"
makes me laugh out loud with its merry, diminutive figures cast
in cement. The heavy religious symbols – a cross, crescent and
Star of David – have metal arms and legs much like the animated
California Raisins. They are frozen in lighthearted mid-jig,
with their arms raised and legs kicking up in joyful unity. If
only.
Renee Iacone and Trudy Solin’s "Gnosis" (the intuitive
apprehension of spiritual truths, an esoteric form of knowledge
sought by Gnostics) places 26 anthropomorphous sculptures, impaled
on metal poles anchored in rocks. The sheer number of them, decorated
in an array of rich colors and lush materials, lined up in tiers
between a chain link fence and the brick wall, stops the viewer
in her tracks. One is covered in dozens of closely spaced nails,
giving the effect of a nightmarish human pincushion.
Other sculptures are more abstract and blend more easily in the
park setting. Nicolae Golici’s "History Repeats" is
a spiral of unpainted wood boards, bolted and glued into circles,
undulating up and down with its ends yawning open. Large enough
to crawl through, Golici’s sculpture offers a tunnel vision of
a picnic table on one end and emergency vehicles out the other
end.
Clark’s "Archeological Rhythm" is a perfect marriage
of sculpture and placement. Her tree, formed from leaf-less twigs,
from which mobiles of bones, shells and beads hang, is placed
in a spot where the river’s waves lap at the rocky shoreline.
Her silent wind chimes sway on the breeze. It seems that here
the visitor is far from the hustle and bustle of urban life,
and the constant whooshing of bridge traffic could be the sound
of the ocean crashing on the beach. The combined effect is entrancing.
And those are just a few of the highlights of this 21st edition
of the BWAC Outdoor Sculpture Show. It’s a pity it comes just
once a year.
The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition’s
sculpture show, "What’s Going On?" will be on display
from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm, daily, through Sept. 14 at Empire-Fulton
Ferry State Park, on Water Street between New Dock and Main streets
in Fulton Ferry. The show is free. For more information, call
(718) 596-2507 or visit the Web site at www.bwac.org.
