Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Bryan Hunt's Sculptures Simulating Water On Park Avenue

Now on exhibit on Park Avenue between 52nd and 57th Streets are sculptures of Bryan Hunt. This is a retrospective of Hunt's cast bronze and aluminum water sculpture series. The exhibition continues through November 11, 2011.

From http://www.nycgovparks.org/art

Hunt’s ten-work survey of his Waterfall sculpture series will be the largest and most ambitious outdoor display of his work to date. This retrospective grouping, spanning from 1977 to 2006, brings the outdoor sculpture series, for which he is best known, together for the first time.

Bryan Hunt’s cast bronze and aluminum Waterfalls are the physical outcome of decades-long pursuit to capture water as a found object and sculptural element, frozen and abstracted from nature. His study of water allows him to explore sculptural casting processes as much as natural waterfall compositions. In the 1970s, Hunt became captivated by the sensuality of traditional sculpture by artists like Auguste Rodin, and was inspired to similarly mold and model his works, a deviation from the Minimalist trends of the time. Cast from models in chiseled plaster and wet clay, Hunt’s sculptures are made from molten metal which, as it hardens, simulates arrested water. His sculptural cascading forms give, in Hunt’s words, “liquid a tangible form”.

In 2006 Parks & Recreation unveiled Hunt’s permanent outdoor public sculpture entitled Coenties Ship, part of Hunt’s “airships” series. This twenty-one foot tall sculpture, fabricated from stainless steel and glass, is located at Coenties Slip Park in lower Manhattan. On behalf of the City and New York, he also designed commemorative pieces from World Trade Center steel later given to families of the victims of 9/11.

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