Tag Archives: Alexander Calder

Grown-Up Mobiles: Nathan Carter at Casey Kaplan

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Williamsburg Brooklyn Public Housing Project Concealed Swinden Call and Response  
I’m really over long, evocative but gibberishy names for exhibitions– POCKET SHRAPNEL SET-UPS VERONICA VEX AND BROOKLYN STREET TREASURE –being a great example of such. That being said, the art itself in this Nathan Carter exhibition at Casey Kaplan was quite good–small scale Calder-esque with a bit more intricacy. The wall-sized installation above could have been a Miro if flat, but Carter brought out the dimensions by creating the composition from large metal pieces at varying depths to good effect (hard to capture in a photograph).

There was another fabulous, playful piece reminiscent of the game Mousetrap that I loved. However I am in a sad state–camera-less– and so will have to leave you with this one image pulled from the web and tell you to go see for yourself before October 23. For some reason Casey Kaplan doesn’t have any of his new work up.

Public Art Manhattan

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When I walk to work in the morning, I pass a big red metal sculpture on the corner of 57th and Madison. Like many pieces of large civic art, I barely notice it. Office buildings in the city include large abstract sculptural works in the same way that they include a public atrium (also known as a tax break).

Just down the street from my office stands the Lever House, at 54th St. and Park. Currently, it is displaying a light installation by Keith Sonner (that replaced a gold chain link fence complex) in it’s street-level glass box of a room. On the ground level, the Lever House also has benches, a fountain, and — wait for it– large Hello Kitties sculptures (by Tom Sachs, I think) in it’s courtyard area. These white, papermache-style figures are huge and solid. Sometimes tourists take photos with the Hello Kitty sculptures. On one hand, it’s fun, but on the other, I’m not sure that it works.

I question how well these public art displays function, and I think it’s a matter of context. Museum settings at least focus one’s attention. In the case of the Lever House, they own some pretty cool pieces (“Virgin Mother” by Damien Hirst, “Bride Fight” by E.V. Day, “The Hulks” by Jeff Koons) and are making them uniquely accessible to the public with no museum fees. Yet next to the skyscrapers of midtown, these large, awe-inspiring designs are subsumed. The street corner leaves them anonymous, and they become just another obstacle on the street for Manhattanites to speed past. Perhaps it’s a testament to Manhattanites’ drive that they can speed past works of art with a single glance.

Here works of art so easily become like the red sculpture (which happens to be by Alexander Calder) that I pass on my way to work: landscape.