Statuesque in City Hall Park

Aaron Curry (American, born 1972) Yellow Bird Boy (2010, powder coated aluminum)

Aaron Curry (American, born 1972) Big Pink (2010, powder coated aluminum)

Thomas Houseago (British, born 1972) Untitled - Sprawling Octopus Man (2009, bronze)

Pawel Althamer (Polish, born 1967) and the Nowolipie Group (Poland, est. 2004) Sylwia (2010, aluminum) 

Aaron Curry (American, born 1972) Horned Head Trip (reclining) (2010, powder coated aluminum)

Thomas Houseago (British, born 1972) Untitled - Red Man (2008, bronze)

Huma Bhabha (American, born in Pakistan 1962) The Orientalist (2007, bronze)

Currently on display at the New York City Hall Park in downtown Manhattan are sculptures of a dynamic group of six international artists as they reinvent figurative sculpture for a new era. Statuesque features the works of art by Pawel Althamer, Huma Bhabha, Aaron Curry, Thomas Houseago, Matthew Monahan, and Rebecca Warren. Photos of some of the artworks were taken yesterday.

From the official website:

The exhibition is the first time these artists have been shown together, revealing a striking interest in the figure that transcends national boundaries. As the first project curated by Public Art Fund's new Director and Chief Curator Nicholas Baume, Statuesque also marks the New York debut of each work included. In conceivingStatuesque, Baume makes a persuasive argument for the renewed significance of the figure in international contemporary sculpture.

Statuesque celebrates the return of figurative sculpture, but not in the classical sense. Neither literal portraits nor traditional monuments, these works push the expressive potential of sculptural forms and materials. While the approaches and backgrounds of the artists are very different, their work shares a number of key characteristics. They tend towards abstraction over realism, assemblage over the readymade, construction of form over casting from life, and physicality and texture over refinement of finish. Conceptually sophisticated, historically informed, and expressively direct, Statuesque finds in the human figure a sculptural tradition ripe for experimentation.