LINCOLN, MASS.- This summer
deCordova is adding several large-scale works to its 30-acre Sculpture Park. Aaron Curry: Grove—three colorful painted aluminum sculptures ranging from 10 feet to 18 feet tall—have been installed near the Park’s front entrance. JaeHyo Lee’s 0121-1110=113035 (Lotus)—an 18-foot-tall cone-shaped sculpture made from discarded pieces of wood—will be installed on deCordova’s main lawn across from the traditional nineteenth century Carriage House in late-July. Both installations will be on view for two years.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to display these monumental works of art in deCordova’s Sculpture Park, as each introduces a very different element to our campus,” says Sarah Montross, associate curator at deCordova. “Aaron Curry’s trio of vibrant sculptures will add an otherworldly presence to our entrance lawn, welcoming visitors with a bold splash of color and cartoon-like appearance. JaeHyo Lee’s wooden Lotus sculpture will bring a calming, organic quality to the main lawn and create a natural conversation with the surrounding trees and landscape.”
Also this summer, Torso— a granite sculpture by Reno Pisano shown in the Museum’s first sculpture exhibition in 1950—returns to deCordova’s campus.
In early September, deCordova will continue its PLATFORM series with the outdoor installation of a large-scale photograph by French artist Noémie Goudal.
Earlier in May, deCordova installed Hawaii California Steel (Figure Ground), a site-specific work by Brooklyn-based artist Letha Wilson, as part of its PLATFORM series.
July Installations
Aaron Curry: Grove
BLUBAT, 2013, painted aluminum, 10 x 8 x 4 ¼ feet; UGLY MESS, 2013, painted aluminum, 18 x 5 x 8 feet; HOMEWRECKER, 2013, painted aluminum, 11 x 10 1/3 x 5 3/8 feet
Both abstract and anthropomorphic, the three monumental sculptures presented in Aaron Curry: Grove (pictured above) feel improvisational, with irregular contours and air-brushed, neon-streaked surfaces. Originally installed at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, these sculptures by the Los Angeles-based artist were designed with theatrical scenery in mind. They are constructed them from sheets of aluminum so thin that their forms seem to disappear and re-appear in space according to the viewer’s vantage point. Curry’s bold and whimsical style updates modern masters, such as Alexander Calder and David Smith, with contemporary allusions to science fiction, Sunday cartoons, and stagecraft.
JaeHyo Lee, 0121-1110=113035 (Lotus), 2013, 18 1/3 x 3 2/3 x 3 2/3 feet, chestnut
Installation date: Week of July 24
Korean artist JaeHyo Lee manipulates organic materials to produce stunning abstract sculptures. To create 0121-1110=113035 (Lotus) (pictured right), Lee burned discarded pieces of wood, crosscut them to reveal circles and oblongs, and polished the surfaces to a smooth finish. The curving, biomorphic shapes were then mounted to a metal armature, resulting in a towering plume-like form. 0121-1110=113035 (Lotus) reflects Lee's meticulous craftsmanship and reverence for the natural cycles of life and death. Installed in the Sculpture Park, the work will relate to other nearby works that incorporate natural elements, including Ursula von Rydingsvard’s cedar and graphite ence pence and Richard Long’s Brownstone Circle.
Additional Summer Installations
Brooklyn-based Letha Wilson’s Hawaii California Steel (Figure Ground), was installed in the deCordova Sculpture in May as part of the PLATFORM series. A site-specific commission, this 10-foot-tall sculpture made of intersecting steel plates features larger than life-size photographs of the desert and jungle. Taken during Wilson’s recent travels to Joshua Tree National Park and Kauai Island of Hawaii, these fragmented views of contrasting terrains will create compelling shifts of scale and perspective within deCordova’s cultivated New England landscape. Hawaii California Steel (pictured above) bridges exciting new forms of photo-mechanical representation with the legacy of large-scale outdoor steel sculpture.
Later this summer, a sculpture by Reno Pisano returns to deCordova’s campus. Torso, a carved granite rendering of a human figure, was shown in the Museum’s first sculpture exhibition in 1950, the institution’s founding year. The work merges abstraction with a revival of classical form, evoking a sense of timelessness. Its unadorned pink stone surface emphasizes the sculpture’s angularity, mass, and verticality. Pisano, who attended and later taught at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, also helped found Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA, in 1970. He was an influential teacher, instructing artists such as Carlos Dorrien, whose granite sculpture Little Red Riding Hood and Other Stories (2000) is also installed at deCordova.
For the twentieth iteration of its PLATFORM series, deCordova will install a large-scale photographic print by French artist Noémie Goudal within the Sculpture Park’s landscape in early September. Goudal’s photographs reside somewhere between fact and fiction, where they tug at human imagination. For this project, the artist traveled to the southern Mojave desert in California, where she built and photographed a series of geometric wooden structures that mimic the contours of mountains. In the resulting images, these strange Minimalist architectures rise from the desert landscape like mirages. Her interest in mountains stems from their symbolic presence throughout our history, often serving as sites of sacred worship, as well as metaphors for the sublime in literature and art history. For Goudal’s PLATFORM exhibition, she will create a monumental photograph from this series to be installed on a billboard. Set within deCordova’s grounds, the image presents a portal into an uncanny, almost virtual, landscape.
