Connecting the lines and the bonds that join people, place, and meaning is the intellectual definition of context in sculpture. Coaxing the materials to life is the natural consequence of, not the precursor to, that connection.
In New York City for the unveiling of his first public sculpture in the U.S, Todd Stuart’s trip coincided with the inaugural Frieze art festival in June 2019. A visit to Frieze drove home again the importance of context to sculpture.
Staged at the Rockefeller Centre between April and June, Frieze is an annual art festival incorporating a major sculpture exhibition located throughout the Rockefeller Plaza. The Rockefeller Centre hosted the exhibition with funding from a major New York real estate developer.
In 2019, the Frieze sculpture component featured 20 significant works by 14 established artists from around the world. Among the more famous artists on display were the Polish-born English-based multi-media artist, Goshka Macuga, Ghanaian installation artist, Ibrahim Mahama, Spanish painter and sculptor, Joan Miró, Brazilian sculptor and performer, Paulo Nazareth, American installation artist, Sarah Sze, and American contemporary conceptual artist, Hank Willis Thomas.
Other artists to feature in Todd Stuart’s video observations on Frieze (visit the link here) included Spanish sculptor, Jaume Plensa, American fabric sculptor and artist, Nick Cave, American multi-media artist, Kiki Smith, Mexican artist, Jose Dávila, and American painter and sculptor Aaron Curry.
Brett Littman, head of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, curated the exhibition. In an interview with the respected Gagosian Quarterly, mouthpiece of the international chain of Gagosian galleries, Littman said:
Curator Brett Littman on monumentality
‘When you work with an art fair, you have to work with galleries that are participating in the fair. We sent out a letter to these galleries, in which I described the general parameters of the project. I was not interested in the monumentality of what’s gone on there before; I really wanted to do something that was more human-scale, had some gender balance, and was global. Instead of thinking about it as a presentation of huge sculptures that I would just place on the plaza in front of 30 Rock or on Fifth Avenue, I really wanted to think about how I could use the history and texture of this particular architectural campus and place the sculptures in dialogue with existing historical elements.
‘As I began to look through the proposals from the galleries, it was interesting to see that many of the artworks seemed to be political in nature. There’s a lot of encoded critique of neoliberalism, capitalism, race relations, image making, and the dissemination of information. That said, of course there are other works with more strictly formal concerns.’
Like legendary Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s famous Rockefeller Plaza sculpture, News, Todd Stuart’s work Summit of Manhattan was his first commissioned piece in New York (and in the United States).
In his four and a half minute video of selected elements of Frieze, Todd says the exhibition represents ‘an amazing collection of sculptors and a sculpture collection that has been beautifully curated for the value of each individual piece.’
Context versus place
But he goes on to make the point that even the finest sculpture placed into an environment beyond its original provenance can lose context. Powerful as travelling exhibitions can be, without a contextual explanation of the inspiration behind the work, the connection between art and humanity can dilute, or even dissolve completely.
Speaking to his own sculpture, Summit of Manhattan, he explains the connection between its symbolic fusing of infinity with the majestic 43-storey Summit apartment building. Standing at its entrance, Summit of Manhattan’s context is to introduce, and serve as a constant reminder of the notion of a never-ending journey for the towers’ occupants and passers-by.
‘If you take the time to discover the meaning of a place and a project and its culture and people, you can really do something that will in-build value into that sculpture which has a chance then of becoming a legacy because people will then own it in the community and love it for the future onwards.
If you have a project where it’s important to create a meaningful landmark that has the power to communicate and connect people and place, to learn more click here for our website. Or for a personal take on sculpture in context, call Todd Stuart on +61 4 5151 8865, or visit mainartery.art.
