#sculpture NYC 2024

[thisislizheather]

The Met Roof Garden Exhibit 2024

Above Photo: The Met Roof Garden, May 2024

"Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj (born 1986, Kostërc, former Yugoslavia) has been commissioned to create a site-specific installation for the Museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. For the artist's first major project in the United States, Halilaj has transformed The Met Roof with a sprawling sculptural installation." - The Met

Above Photo: The Met Roof Garden, May 2024

The new rooftop exhibit at The Met has arrived and I keep going back and forth on whether I love it. I’m a big fan of how much space it takes up (why bother doing an outdoor, sculpture exhibit if it isn’t overbearing in some way?), but I just wish there were more pieces. It’s definitely better than some of the past rooftop commissions (ahem, I’m looking at you, 2013 exhibit), so if you find yourself at The Met then definitely stop by and see for yourself.

Above Photo: The Met Roof Garden, May 2024

Above Photo: The Met Roof Garden, May 2024

The exhibit runs at The Met Fifth Avenue until October 27th, 2024.

[scopophilic1997]

scopOphilic_micromessaging_1125 - scopOphilic1997 presents a new micro-messaging series: small, subtle, and often unintentional messages we send and receive verbally and non-verbally.

[slugmorelz]

June 20, 2024 Coney Island, NYC

[introspect-la]

EVERY WHICH WAY BY RICHARD SERRA (2015) INSTALLATION VIEW IN DAVID ZWIRNER NEW YORK (2024)

[longlistshort]

The above work is Olafur Eliasson’s Edgy but perfect kinship sphere, 2020, spotted at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery’s Los Angeles location.

Eliasson is showing work in a solo exhibition at the gallery’s New York location that includes two new light installations, one of which includes sound, a series of recent watercolors, and two new sculptures. That exhibition will be on view until 12/19/24.

In Los Angeles he has a solo exhibition at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, on view until July 2025. This show is part of the PST ART: Art and Science Collide programming taking place throughout Southern California.

[criticcritiquing]

[jgthirlwell]

2024 Year In Review

2024 was another intense year. It was the first time in twenty years I wasn’t scoring a show for TV, and I got to concentrate on finishing albums and starting new projects. The year began with the premiere of my chamber symphony for Alterity Chamber Orchestra in Orlando and ended with guest-vocalizing with the Losers Lounge Band on a Bowie classic at Joe's Pub in NYC. I completed new albums for Xordox and Venture Bros, to be released in 2025. I released an Archer Soundtrack album and scored a Harry Smith film for L’Etrange Festival in Paris. Worked with Laura Wolf on a new project and premiered my Ensemble project at the Big Ears Festival in Tennessee. Recorded many overdubs for the next Foetus album, also to be released in 2025. Began a new series of sculptural wall pieces. We lost Phill Niblock in January and Steve Albini in May. We lost my colleague Roli Mosimann in September. I still woke up 5am in a panic on too many occasions. As a cultural omnivore, many sights, sounds and stimuli penetrated me.

Albums that I enjoyed in 2024

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum of the Last Human Being (Pelagic) Present This is not the end (Cuneiform) Tristan Perich/Ensemble 0 Open Symmetry (Erased Tapes) Drew McDowall A Thread Silvered and Trembling (Dais) Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan Your Community Hub (Castles In Space) Extra Life The Sacred Vowel (Bandcamp) Geordie Greep The New Sound (Rough Trade) D-en Haut D-en Haut (Pagan) Aksumi Fleeting Future + Lines (Tonal Union) Louis Cole Nothing (Brainfeeder) Uniform American Standard (Sacred Bones) Zeal and Ardor Greif (Redacted) Shellac To All Trains (Touch and Go) Bangladeafy Vulture (Nefarious Industries) Ekko Astral Pink Balloons (Topshelf Records) Kee Avil Spine (Constellation) Fennesz Mosaic (Touch) Marewren Ukouk Round singing Voices of the Ainu 2012-2024 (Pingipung) Elysian Fields What The Thunder Said (Ojet) Melvins Tarantula Heart (Ipecac) Blood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media) Aoife O’Donovan All My Friends (Yep Roc) Anna Thorvaldsdottir Aerial (Sono Luminus) Grace Bergere A Little Blood (Casa Gogol) Bob Vylan Humble As The Sun (Ghost Theatre 2) Andy Akiho Kin (Aki Rhythm) Yannis Kyriakides Hypnokaseta (Unsounds) Big | Brave A Chaos of Flowers (Thrill Jockey) The The Ensoulment (Cinéola / earMUSIC) Beth Gibbons Lives Outgrown (Domino) Beak >>>> / Kosmik Musik (Invada) Sebastian Tropic OST (Ed Banger) Chaser Planned Obsolescence (Decoherence Records) Jesus Lizard Rack (Ipecac) Ex East Islander Norther (Rocket Recordings)

Some books I enjoyed

Yuval Noah Harari Nexus Chris Stein Under A Rock Bill Buford Among The Thugs Patricia Highsmith The Talented Mr Ripley Sy Montgomery Soul Of An Octopus Malcolm Gladwell Revenge Of The Tipping Point

Some films I enjoyed

Furiosa ZEF Story Of Die Antwoord Joker Folie A Deux Kneecap Bad Faith Rebel Ridge Hundreds Of Beavers Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Behavior Teachers Lounge

I saw hundreds of concerts in 2024. Some highlights:

01.24.24 The Chisel at Bowery Ballroom 02.15.24 Jack Quartet play Austin Wulliman at Roulette Intermedium NYC. 03.09.24 Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi at Brooklyn Steel 03.14.24 Kate NV at the Atrium at Lincoln Center 03.18.24 Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at Elsewhere in Brooklyn 03.23.24 Secret Chiefs 3 at Big Ears Festival 03.23.24 Hatis Noit at St John’s Cathedral in Knoxville TN for the Big Ears Festival 03.24.24 Kenny Wollesen’s Sonic Massage at Knoxville Art Museum for the Big Ears Festival 03.24.24 Elliott Sharp’s Void Patrol (with guests Cyro Batista and Colin Stetson) at Big Ears Festival 03.24.24 Aoife O'Donovan with the Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra at the Big Ears Festival 04.01.24 Caleb Landry Jones at The Sultan Room i 04.06.24 Lovely Little Girls at Hart Bar. 04.19.24 Keith Fullerton Whitman performs ‘Playthroughs’ at Ambient Church 04.23.24 Mandy Indiana at Elsewhere in Brooklyn 04.26.24 Knower at the Brooklyn Bowl 05.04.24 Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, directed by Tim Weiss, play Alex Paxton at Long Play Festival 05.04.24 Fuji|||||||||||ta at Long Play Festival 05.05.24 Ligeti Quartet perform Ligeti + Anna Meredith at Long Play Festival 05.17.23 Swans at Music Hall of Williamsburg 05.23.24 The Rolling Stones played at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey. 05.24.24 John Zorn’s ensemble, the New Masada Quartet 06.08.24 Rebekah Heller’s Bassoon Ensemble 06.25.24 Mdou Moctar at Bowery Ballroom NYC 07.12.24 C.Gibbs Review at Barbes 07.23.24 Bangladeafy at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn 08.18.24 Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds at Union Pool 08.23.24 Alarm Will Sound play Marcos Balter’s Code-Switching, 09.30.24 Uniform at Bowery Ballroom 09.04.24 King Dunn aka King Buzzo (Melvins) and Trevor Dunn (Mr Bungle etc) at Music Hall of Williamsburg + White Eagle Hall in Jersey City. 09.13.24 Steven Bernstein and Nels Cline with the Arturo O'Farrill Latin Jazz Orchestra, playing James Bond themes. At Bryant Park in NYC. 09.15.24 PJ Harvey at Terminal 5, NYC 10.11.24 John Zorn’s Cobra in a 40th anniversary performance at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn 10.17.25 The The played at the Beacon Theater 10.22.24 Die Antwoord at Brooklyn Steel, 10.23.24 Boris played at Racket in NYC. 11.01.24 William Basinski for Age Of Reflections 11.04.24 Growing performing for Abasement at Artists Space in Manhattan 11.06.24 Pioneer Works presented a concert of Louis Cole Choral Music. 11.08.24 Lankum at Warsaw in Brooklyn 11.17.24 sunn o))) at Lincoln Center for the Unsound Festival 11.21.24 Extra Life at TV Eye. 11.24.24 Zeal and Ardor at Le Poisson Rouge NYC 11.25.24 Axiom, comprised of Juilliard students and conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky playing Solstice Ritual by Augusta Read Thomas 11.26.24 Blood Incantation at Elsewhere 12.01.24 Pharmakon’s awesomely unhinged performance at Union Pool. 12.11.24 Jesus Lizard played a great set at Brooklyn Steel 12.28.24 Grace Bergere / Jon Spencer / Gogol Bordello Capitol Theater Port Chester

Honorable mention to the multiple concerts I attended at the Abasement series at Artist Space, as well as multiple shows by S.E.M. Ensemble and Wet Ink Ensemble

[otoso]

"The Beauty of Recovering What Has Been Lost"

a new work, a Bronze sculpture by the brilliant @shikeith

per this year's The Amory Show

Javits Center September 6–8, 2024 NYC

[msamba]

Massive Pigeon Sculpture Perched on the High Line Overlooks NYC | My Modern Met

By Regina Sienra on November 14, 2024 Iván Argote, “Dinosaur,” 2024. A High Line Plinth commission. On view October 2024 – Spring 2026. (Photo: Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of the High Line.) Da boids rule dis town now. At 30th Street and 10th Avenue, in New York City, a new monumental beast has taken over. This imposing creature is none other than an oversized pigeon, but one with an insightful…

[trascapades]

🎨 #ArtIsAWeapon

**swoon**

SIMONE LEIGH #exhibit on view at @matthewmarksgallery now through December 21, 2024.

📍Matthew Marks Gallery

522 & 525 West 22nd Street, #NYC

Image reposted from @simoneyvetteleigh

Untitled 2023–24

Earthenware, stoneware, and steel armature

90 × 73 × 75 inches

VIA https://matthewmarks.com/exhibitions/simone-leigh-11-2024/

Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Simone Leigh, the next exhibition in his galleries at 522 and 526 West 22nd Street. The exhibition, her first with the gallery, includes eleven new sculptures in ceramic and bronze.

Over the past twenty years, Simone Leigh has created a multi-faceted body of work dedicated to her ongoing exploration of Black female-identified subjectivity. Leigh is best known for her sculptures that incorporate forms associated with African diasporic traditions. In the artist’s own words, “It makes something new. Sometimes, it collapses time. Sometimes, it makes similarities that may have happened over a millennium more obvious.”

Each of Leigh’s new sculptures presents an image of a partially abstracted female body. By “abstracting the figure,” Leigh explains, “I imagine a kind of experience, a state of being, rather than one person.”

#SimoneLeigh #BlackGirlArtGeeks #NYCExhibit #BlackWomen #BlackWomenArtists

[evelyns-nyc-fashion-study-tour]

Blog Post #9: Dover Street Market

On Thursday, October 31, 2024, my Study Experience for NYC Fashion Students course visited the Dover Street Market concept store, a visit I eagerly anticipated due to my limited knowledge of it beforehand. A few friends had shared that it offered a unique shopping experience with a meticulously curated product assortment, but I avoided researching heavily to keep the experience a surprise. 

Upon entering, we encountered an extensive selection of jewelry thoughtfully arranged to showcase complementary pieces. Our group began the tour at the basement level, known for its streetwear and limited-edition sneakers, before gradually working our way up. Here, some of the sales associates shared insights into the store’s origins and operations. I learned that Dover Street Market was created by Rei Kawakubo, the founder of Comme des Garçons, to expand her fashion vision internationally. Every product and artistic installation in the store is curated by Kawakubo herself. The associates mentioned that opening and closing the store requires a meticulous routine of photographing the space to ensure everything is perfectly staged—a process that underscores the importance of staging to the shopping experience. 

Our professor pointed out that as you move up each floor, the price point of the items increases. I was captivated by not only the clothing but also the artistic installations, which added depth to the overall ambiance. One memorable feature was a vibrant knit ceiling support, which stood out amid the mostly neutral-toned products, drawing attention through bold color contrast. Another striking installation was a neutral-toned chair sculpture adorned with hats, which provided a different kind of contrast to the surrounding vibrant garments. 

I was impressed by the selection of brands, both high-end luxury and emerging streetwear, including Miu Miu, Vivienne Westwood, The Row, Valentino, and Supreme. One of the associates shared that many shoppers prioritize visiting Dover Street Market for the latest runway pieces from Comme des Garçons. This led me to observe the target audience more closely; many customers wore brands available in the store, reflecting a strong preference for streetwear with a rebellious, edgy aesthetic. A crowd had also gathered for a limited Supreme drop happening that day.

Overall, it was inspiring to see Rei Kawakubo’s vision brought to life through her artistic choices in visual merchandising. Every element in the store, from installations to product curation, enhances the garments on display and creates an immersive experience. I left with a new appreciation for how detailed visual merchandising impacts consumer retention and shapes the shopping experience, making every detail meaningful and memorable.

[seositetool]

Portals.org Announces the Relocation of the Viral NYC Portal to Philadelphia’s Love Park

The famed NYC Portal has relocated to Philadelphia after its initial display at Flatiron South Plaza in Manhattan, with a grand re-opening at John F. Kennedy Plaza, also known as Love Park. October 23, 2024 – Philadelphia, PA – Portals.org, the organization behind the popular technology sculptures, announces the relocation of the viral NYC Portal to Philadelphia, unveiling its new home at the…

[slugmorelz]

June 20, 2024

Coney Island, NYC

[artcontests]

Call for Artists- First Street Gallery 2024 National Juried Exhibition

Entries are open for First Street Gallery's 2024 National Juried Exhibition. The exhibition will take place October 30 - November 23, 2024 in the Gallery's exhibition space in the Chelsea Art District in NYC. The Reception is October 31st, 6-8PM. The JUROR: APRIL GORNIK . ENTRY FEE: $40/ 1-3 works, $5 ea. additional work, Max 6 works. (The Gallery does not take a commission on sales in the show) Open to U.S. resident artists 18 yrs. or older. Exception: Artists currently represented by First Street Gallery. ELIGIBLE WORKS: ORIGINAL oils, acrylics, watercolors, pastels, drawings, prints, photography, mixed media, assemblage and sculpture in any medium. All subjects, styles and genres welcome so long as the medium is eligible. WORK SIZE MAXIMUMS: All Wall-Hung Work - 2D or 3D: No larger than 36"H x 36"W, including frame; No more than 10" deep from wall; 30 lbs. maximum weight. Free-standing or Pedestal Works: Maximum 30" width or depth; NO height limit; maximum footprint: 30:x30"; 50 libs. maximum weight. Entries With Online Entry Form ONLY.

Deadline: August 28, 2024

For more information: https://www.theartlist.com/07082024152209-call-for-artists-first-street-gallery-2024-national-juried-exhibition

[longlistshort]

(images of Lotus L. Kang's, “In Cascades”, 2023-2024)

The Whitney Biennial ‘s 2024 edition, Even Better Than The Real Thing, presents a large group of artists, working in different mediums, with many pieces directly dealing with social and political issues. The show does have a certain heaviness to it, but with all of the issues currently happening in the world it would be impossible for that not to be reflected in the artwork.

From the museum-

The eighty-first edition of the Whitney Biennial—the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States—features seventy-one artists and collectives grappling with many of today’s most pressing issues. This Biennial is like being inside a “dissonant chorus,” as participating artist Ligia Lewis described it, a provocative yet intimate experience of distinct and disparate voices that collectively probe the cracks and fissures of the unfolding moment.

The exhibition’s subtitle, Even Better Than the Real Thing, acknowledges that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is complicating our understanding of what is real, and rhetoric around gender and authenticity is being used politically and legally to perpetuate transphobia and restrict bodily autonomy. These developments are part of a long history of deeming people of marginalized race, gender, and ability as subhuman—less than real. In making this exhibition, we committed to amplifying the voices of artists who are confronting these legacies, and to providing a space where difficult ideas can be engaged and considered.

This Biennial is a gathering of artists who explore the permeability of the relationships between mind and body, the fluidity of identity, and the growing precariousness of the natural and constructed worlds around us. Whether through subversive humor, expressive abstraction, or non-Western forms of cosmological thinking, to name but a few of their methods, these artists demonstrate that there are pathways to be found, strategies of coping and healing to be discovered, and ways to come together even in a fractured time.

There’s a lot of great work to see. Below are just a few selections and some documentation from the museum.

For Lotus L. Kang’s In Cascades, (pictured above), the artist has hung sheets of photographic film from the ceiling that are gradually changed by the light inside the gallery. She refers to the exposure process as “tanning” and, like our skin, the film is changing over time with its environment. On the floor are little sculptures, as well as a a suitcase, all suggesting movement and change.

Kiyan Williams eye-catching outdoor installation Ruins of Empire II or The Earth Swallows the Master’s House, has the White House is sinking into the ground with an  upside down American flag at the top.

Maja Ruznic, “The Past Awaiting the Future/Arrival of Drummers”, 2023

The description of Maja Ruznic‘s painting from the museum-

Ruznic has said that The Past Awaiting the Present/Arrival of Drummers “looks at how multiple things can be true at the same time: birth, violence, pain, suffering, joy, and music.” She has described the horizontal format of the painting as inherently linear, implying a past, present, and future. The movements suggested by the figures’ feet—some in profile and others pointed toward the viewer—collapse these temporalities into a single symbolic image.

Isaac Julien’s immersive video installation was really absorbing. The sculptures added an extra dimension to what was on screen.

From the museum-

Unfolding across five screens, Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die) reflects on the life and thought of Alain Locke (1885–1954), philosopher, educator, and cultural critic of the Harlem Renaissance (played by André Holland) who urged members of the African diaspora to embrace African art in order to reclaim their cultural heritage. The installation includes sculptures by Richmond Barthé (1901–1989) and Matthew Angelo Harrison (b. 1985), opening up a conversation about Black artists’ legacies that extends across modern history. Julien has described the work as a form of “poetic restitution,” speaking to the ways museums have collected African art. The artist refines this critique by creating a visual and sonic meditation as a “diasporic dream-space.”

In the work, Locke contemplates the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford—where he was the first Black Rhodes Scholar—and the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, founded by one of Locke’s interlocutors, Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951), played by Danny Huston. Barnes also debates a skeptical Locke on his heritage, a sequence that distills many of the questions that the installation raises: Who gets to define Black modernism? Who has the authority to speak? How do men negotiate power, or queer desire?

Mary Lovelace O’Neal, “Twelve Thirty-Four “(From the “Doctor Alcocer’s Corsets for Horses” series), 2023, Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas

From the museum about Mary Lovelace O’Neal-

Mary Lovelace O’Neal began the series that included Blue Whale aka #12 (from the Whales Fucking series), after two whales caught her imagination as she walked on a beach near San Francisco. “And watching them, I thought, imagine the tons and tons of water they must displace when they’re fucking!” It is this sense of excitement and desire on a grand scale, the energy of the light in their spray, that she worked to capture in paint—more than the image of the whale itself.

Such a dynamic, independent, sometimes slightly outrageous point of view has driven Lovelace O’Neal throughout her sixty-year career, which has unfolded alongside heated debates about what painting should or should not do and prescriptive views of Black artists and abstraction. While Lovelace O’Neal was deeply involved with the civil rights movement on a political level, she resisted calls to make representational paintings that would illustrate or inspire the struggle, insisting that forging her own path in abstraction—as she does in each of the paintings on view here—was equally relevant to Black life.

Cannupa Hanska Luger “Uŋziwoslal Wašičuta (from the series Future Ancestral Technologies)”, 2021

From the museum-

Cannupa Hanska Luger proposes: “This installation is not inverted . . . our current world is upside down.” For the artist, upending our grounding in time and space makes way for imagined futures free of colonialism and capitalism, where broader Indigenous knowledge can thrive. The work here, Uŋziwoslal Wašičuta (a Lakota phrase meaning “the fat-taker’s world is upside down”), celebrates Native technologies by using the shape of a tipi—a word that the artist has also turned into an acronym, standing for Transportable Intergenerational Protection Infrastructure (TIPI). Luger looks at the complex structure as an example of the innovations created by his ancestors of the Northern Plains tribes. Luger’s materials, such as deadstock fabric, found objects, and clay, reflect the artist’s commitment to sustainability and reuse.

(Work by Suzanne Jackson)

From the museum about all of the unique creations by Suzanne Jackson–

Suzanne Jackson made these suspended paintings without canvas, slowly building up many layers of acrylic, detritus, gel medium, and objects from the natural world, including seeds from her garden in Savannah, Georgia. Jackson has been experimenting with acrylic paint since the 1960s. “It’s painting another way,” she explains. “I don’t call it collage because it’s not another material. It’s all paint—acrylic on acrylic. And it’s suspended: paint suspended in space. . . . The paint becomes an armature for itself.” This “armature” is not fixed, however; Jackson thinks of the paintings as living things and is very open to the fact that they are malleable and will reshape. The layered paint seems to have a kind of agency and an ability to change independently. Looking at its iridescent quality up close creates an afterimage—a lasting mental image that continues even when a viewer has shifted their gaze away.

Two of Eamon Ore-Giron’s paintings from “Talking Shit”, Mineral paint and vinyl paint on canvas

From the museum-

These three paintings are part of Eamon Ore-Giron’s Talking Shit series, in which he reimagines deities from ancient Peruvian and Mexican cultures. Reflecting on a famous sculpture of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, the poet Octavio Paz (1914–1998) traced an evolution from “goddess to demon, from demon to monster, and from monster to masterpiece.” This line of thinking resonated with Ore-Giron, who recognized that symbolic figures are continuously reimagined as cultures shift and collective and personal identities are redefined. The series title Talking Shit reflects the artist’s desire to explore this idea and a living ancestral past in ways that are open, informal, and personal.

In these works, Ore-Giron focuses on Andean folklore. He has pictured Amaru, a powerful, protean creature related to water and the underworld, as a zigzagging abstracted dragon. To depict the mythological rainbow made by the creation god Viracocha, Ore-Giron represented the celestial phenomenon as a double-headed snake moving through the sky.

Sections from B. Ingrid Olson's installation

From the museum about B. Ingrid Olson’s photographic and sculptural installation-

This installation intermixes two series, Dura Pictures and Indexes. Each work in the Dura Pictures series presents one photographic image physically embedded within another, what the artist describes as placing a “moment in time within a different moment in time, just like memory does of the past in the present.” The photographs were made in the artist’s studio and record B. Ingrid Olson’s own performative interactions with handmade props and assorted materials, such as mirrors or printed matter set within constrictive ad hoc spaces. The images alternate between showing a first-person vantage point with a torso or toes breaking into the picture plane, and offering a mirrored reflection of the artist, often only partially seen.

Proto Coda, Index is a single artwork with thirty constituent parts—each is a replica of one of the thirty reliefs made by the artist between 2016 to 2022. With concave interior surfaces and irregular hanging heights, the forms each suggest a container for a specific body part, like a piece of armor or a casting mold. The reliefs mark the entire length of the wall, serving as placeholders for an absent body, both fractured and multiplied.

Ser Serpas, “taken through back entrances . . . “, 2024

Ser Serpas’ large sculptural installation, assembled from found objects, grew more interesting when seen at different angles.

From the museum-

Describing sculptures like those included in this exhibition, Ser Serpas has said that “the act of making is a choreographed performance, of which the assemblage is the aftermath.” The performance begins in a city—in this case, New York, and specifically Brooklyn—with the artist collecting discarded objects that speak to her through their color, the ways they have become worn or torn, and their structural openness to being combined. Then she works with the objects’ orifices, odd junctures, and gravity to combine them into provisional sculptures. This process yields a feeling of potential energy just at the moment before an object’s collapse. The resulting sculptures become a kind of dual portrait: first of the city as seen through its cycles of consumption and decay, and then of the artist herself through the expressive choices she has made.

It’s often difficult to see many of the videos that are part of the exhibition due to time constraints. This year the museum partnered with MUBI and you can watch eight of the films for free on their site for a limited time.

On Sunday 8/11/24, the last day of the exhibition, the museum will be free all day with events that include making creature collages with Eamon Ore-Giron (whose work is pictured above).

[xtruss]

The World's Largest Octopus Sculpture Has Landed In NYC! And It’s Brought Along Some Friends.

— Written By Molly Dubens, TimeOut Contributor | Monday July 22 2024

Photograph: Eugene Krasnaok, Gillie and Marc

It’s Time To Oc-Topi Wall Street! Gillie and Marc, the renowned artistic duo known for a number of larger-than-life wildlife sculptures, are exhibiting an array of animal sculptures outside the World Trade Center, including the world’s largest octopus sculpture!

The exhibition named “Wildlife Wonders” includes three interactive bronze works from other pieces that feature their main two iconic characters, Rabbitwomen and Dogman, as well as sculptures of a range of endangered species. The spotlight, however, is on the giant octopus, which spans a whopping 36 feet and weighs around 7 tons. Woven throughout the animal’s eight tentacles are numerous endangered species, like rhinos and zebras.

Photograph: Eugene Krasnaok, Gillie and Marc

It will be on display on the South Oculus Plaza from July 16, 2024, through July 31, 2025.

The creative pair are known for their celebration of wildlife conservation, where they prove that art can inspire positive change. While their sculptures are first and foremost to raise awareness about conservation they also welcome a playful response with their interactive qualities.

Photograph: Eugene Krasnaok, Gillie and Marc

“In the last 50 years, wildlife populations have plummeted by 69% globally. We are now facing the world’s sixth mass extinction,” Gillie stated. “This crisis is beyond description, yet we remain hopeful and committed to witnessing change within our lifetimes. We trust that our art and the stories we tell can inspire people to engage in vital conversations and take meaningful action.” Their exhibitions both raise awareness and celebrate the beauty of wildlife.

Photograph: Eugene Krasnaok, Gillie and Marc

Along with the main piece “The Arms of Friendship,” the two others are titled “The Wild Table of Love” and “The Hippo Was Hungry To Try New Things With Rabbitwoman.” The former is a banquet scene with a bronze table set for both humans and animals. Like the tentacles, the sculpture welcomes you to sit and invites the viewer to join in on the festivities. All these whimsical scenes are made to put a playful spin on the discussion of wildlife conservation.

Go check out these wondrous sculptures and remind yourself of the whimsy and awe of wildlife, maybe even sit on a tentacle or two.