Rafael Barrios, “Malabarismo Lineal,” stainless steel and acrylic lacquer, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Park Avenue Malls
Park Ave. between 50th & 68th Sts.
Through June 30
www.nycgovparks.org
rafael barrios slideshow
Baton Rouge-born Venezuelan-American artist Rafael Barrios has dotted the Park Ave. Malls between Fiftieth & Sixty-eighth Sts. with nine stainless-steel sculptures painted in primarily single-color acrylic lacquer that create fascinating optical illusions as the traffic, particularly yellow taxis, zooms by and clouds pass over the sun. The geometric constructions, in such colors as blue, white, pink, gray, and purple, look flat when seen from some angles, impossibly thin from others, and like three-dimensional cubes floating in space from other directions, displaying what the artist calls “virtualism.” The works — which feature such mysterious names as “Obtusa,” “Triphasique,” “Acrobatica,” “Centrifuga,” “Trifascica,” and “Malabarismo Lineal” — are best experienced by walking around them, as they offer up shifting perspectives that have a magical, playful quality to them. As the sixty-four-year-old Barrios, who is based in Miami, Paris, and Caracas, explains, “Volume is virtually modeled and modified in form — depending on distance — shifting with the position of the observer and the changes in light throughout the day.” The sculptures, which will remain up through the end of June, are worth revisiting if you haven’t seen them in a few months, as the summer sun and the blooming flowers and green grass that surround them add new shades of light and color.