Tag Archives: seagram building

KAWS: CHUM / BFF

KAWS’s CHUM stands lonely and dejected in Midtown (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

LARGER THAN LIFE
Seagram Building, 375 Park Ave. between 52nd & 53rd Sts.
280 Park Ave. at 49th St.
kawstoo.com
chum/bff slideshow

Jersey City–born, Brooklyn-based artist KAWS, aka Brian Donnelly, says goodbye to 2020 with the installation of CHUM, a large-scale sculpture on the plaza in front of the Seagram Building on Park Ave. in Midtown. Kicking off the “What Party” iteration of his “Larger than Life: Companion” series, featuring emotional, empathetic giant figures inspired by Mickey Mouse, Bib the Michelin Man, and astronauts, with KAWS’s trademark double x’s on their eyes or face and other parts of their bodies, the all-black CHUM looks down dejectedly, slouching, arms at his side, with x’s on his hands and boots as well as his face.

KAWS’s BFF is on permanent display on Park Ave. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

KAWS, who was previously an animator, a graffiti artist, and an interventionist, has occasionally brought together two characters at a time to comfort each other. CHUM could use a hug and a smile from a pal, but unfortunately his nearest companion is a few blocks southwest, where the lonely bubblegum pink giant known as BFF stands by himself, trapped permanently inside a glassed-in space, his white eyes staring straight ahead with emptiness. It’s a shame these two sad, lonely creatures can’t meet up as we all look forward to a 2021 in which real, physical contact might return again.

URS FISCHER: BIG CLAY #4

Urs Fischer’s “Big Clay #4” rises in Midtown (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Seagram Building
375 Park Ave. between 52nd & 53rd Sts.
Through September 1, free
www.gagosian.com
big clay #4 slideshow

Four years ago, Zurich-born, New York-based artist Urs Fischer installed “Untitled (Lamp/Bear),” a twenty-three-foot-tall, nearly twenty-ton cuddly yellow teddy bear wearing a working lamp for a hat on the plaza in front of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building on Park Ave.; the piece sold at auction that summer for more than $6.8 million. Fischer has now returned to that triumphant location with “Big Clay #4,” a forty-two-and-a-half-foot-tall aluminum sculpture of a piece of squeezed clay, complete with the artist’s fingerprints. When the piece was being installed, a printout of plans left near construction materials on the plaza showed the ultimate sculpture (actually for “Big Clay #3”) in multiple colors, reminiscent of Jeff Koons’s “Play-Doh” from his recent Whitney retrospective. But alas, the colors were just to help identify which section went where; the final sculpture is plain silver, twisted metal rising like the Midtown skyscrapers surrounding it, though not quite as orderly. Fischer, who has worked with such materials as bread, wax, and vegetables, here goes back to the very source, a small lump of clay that he squeezed, scanned, digitally enlarged, and now has cast for all to see but not touch.

DAN COLEN: CRACKS IN THE CLOUDS

Dan Colen’s motorcycles glitter and shine in front of the Seagram Building in Midtown (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Seagram Building
375 Park Ave. between 52nd & 53rd Sts.
www.gagosian.com
cracks in the clouds slideshow

We were among the many who thought that art bad-boy Dan Colen’s inaugural solo show at the Gagosian, fall 2010’s “Poetry,” stank. But don’t lump us in with all the haters. It literally stank, with several canvases containing chewed bubblegum, sending a sticky aroma into the air. The mixed-media display also included a wooden skateboard ramp, a brick wall supported by a beam, and a baker’s dozen of Harley-Davidsons that had been kicked over, as if the artist were looking for a fight outside a bar. The thirtysomething New Jersey native has now re-created that motorcycle piece, “Cracks in the Clouds,” in front of the Seagram Building on Park Ave., where fellow bad boy Urs Fischer’s “Untitled (Lamp/Bear)” lit up the night last year while fetching nearly seven million at a Christie’s auction. Colen got the idea for “Cracks in the Clouds” after seeing a lineup of bikes outside the Hells Angels headquarters in the East Village. He meticulously went about finding the exact makes and models, incorporated every little detail he could, brought the bikes first to Gagosian and now to the Seagram Building’s plaza, and kicked them over so they fell like fancy, glittering dominoes. Situated between two fountains, “Cracks in the Clouds” recalls the Guggenheim’s controversial 1998 exhibit, “The Art of the Motorcycle,” which drew criticism for installing brand-name bikes in the hallowed institution dedicated to contemporary art. A trained painter, Colen is no stranger to controversy and criticism for his market-savvy use of found objects and ready-mades. But in taking his art outside, away from the high-profile Chelsea galleries, he is gaining a very different audience, one that doesn’t know or care about his art-world celebrity image and reputation and instead just likes looking at a bunch of shiny motorcycles while grabbing a smoke or picking up a sandwich before having to return to the daily grind. [ed. note: Although the display was supposed to stay up through September 30, it suddenly disappeared in early June….]

URS FISCHER: UNTITLED (LAMP/BEAR)

Urs Fischer, “Untitled (Lamp/Bear),” cast bronze, epoxy primer, urethane paint, acrylic polyurethane topcoat, acrylic glass, gas discharge lamp, and stainless-steel framework, 2005-6 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Seagram Building
375 Park Ave. between 52nd & 53rd Sts.
Through September 30, free
www.christies.com
lamp/bear slideshow

Born in Switzerland in 1973, New York-based bad-boy artist Urs Fischer combines photography, sculpture, and installation art in his oeuvre, making holes in gallery and museum walls and floors, manipulating perception and playing with the experience of, well, experiencing art. His 2009-10 show at the New Museum, “Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty,” was met with skepticism in some corners, with numerous critics arguing it was a significant conflict of interest, since museum trustee Dakis Joannou is a major collector of Fischer’s work. Perhaps Fischer is putting such controversy behind him with his latest installation, a huge, cuddly yellow teddy-bear lamp perched in front of the Mies van der Rohe-designed Seagram Building on Park Ave. in Midtown. The twenty-three-foot-tall, thirty-five-thousand-pound 2005-6 cast bronze piece (with a stainless-steel interior) is being showcased for Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Evening Sale on May 11, where it is expected to go for about $10 million; while “Untitled (Lamp/Bear)” might not quite be what the auction house is calling “one of the great sculptural masterpieces of our time,” it is a wholly endearing, playful, and provocative work of childhood memory, complete with floppy arms and legs (and one ear), that actually functions as a night-light, turning on in the evening. The May 11 sale will also feature works by Roy Lichtenstein, Mark Rothko, Cindy Sherman, Alexander Calder, Philip Guston, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, and Jeff Koons, among many others.