A sculpture for Brooklyn's new golden age?
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, November 22, 2024


A sculpture for Brooklyn's new golden age?
Hank Willis Thomas' "Unity" is installed at Tillary and Adams Street, near the Brooklyn Bridge, in Brooklyn, Nov. 9, 2019. Kyle Johnson/The New York Times.

by Martha Schwendener



NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- Standing at the newly constructed intersection of Tillary and Adams streets, near the exit from the Brooklyn Bridge, is a new, 22-foot bronze arm with the index finger pointing skyward. Commissioned by New York City’s Percent for Art program, the permanent sculpture was created by Hank Willis Thomas and is titled “Unity” (2019). Is this outstretched arm a new greeting at the threshold of Brooklyn, like the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor?

Giant arms and hands aren’t a new thing in public sculpture. Head to Rome and you can see a giant right hand, originally from a 4th-century AD colossal sculpture of the Emperor Constantine. Paris has (finally) Jeff Koons’ 41-foot hand holding a bouquet of tulips, his tribute to the victims of terrorist attacks. Visit Trafalgar Square in London, and you can gaze upon David Shrigley’s “Really Good” (2016), a sculpture of a hand with the thumbs-up gesture — with the thumb grotesquely disproportionate to the hand, suggesting everything might not be supergood in Brexit-era London.

Thomas’ “Unity” is more polite than Shrigley’s sculpture. Muscular and appropriately proportioned, it suggests the arm of an athlete, echoing a smaller sculpture of an arm spinning a basketball on the tip of a finger that Thomas conceived in 2015. That work, called “Liberty,” inspired by a photograph of a Harlem Globetrotter and cast from the arm of one-time NBA All-Star Juwan Howard, is now in the Brooklyn Museum. Over the course of his career, Thomas has created other sculptures of hands and arms, with titles like “Promise” (2016).

Sports and the black body have been in the center of Thomas’ work since he began exhibiting photographs a decade and a half ago that showed shaved heads or chests branded with Nike logos. (He also created series of photographs in the vein of appropriation artists like Richard Prince, who rephotographed advertising imagery). Thomas, who studied photography at New York University and worked in commercial photography and television, brings to attention the way products are marketed to African Americans, as well as the historical lack of representation of black people in the mass media.

Thomas’ move into sculpture, though well-received, has been, to my mind, much less exciting. The sharpness and astuteness of his photography is often absent from three-dimensional objects, particularly the large-scale works that mimic sculptors like Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, who created outdoor installations based on everyday objects. Thomas takes this formula and overlays it with African American motifs, like an Afro-comb stuck in the ground, titled “All Power to the People,” which has appeared in Philadelphia and at Burning Man.

The best project in recent years by Thomas — and one that strives for actual unity — is “For Freedoms,” founded in 2016 with Eric Gottesman as a “platform for civic engagement. ” It produced collaborative exhibitions, installations, public programs, and billboard campaigns across the country. Inspired by Norman Rockwell’s 1940s paintings of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear), the billboards created through this project utilize Thomas’ photographic and advertising acumen in a smart, productive way. (Thomas lives in Brooklyn and is married to Rujeko Hockley, a co-curator of the last Whitney Biennial).

Politics has often been the point in public sculpture from ancient Rome to Oldenburg’s earliest public works, such as a phallic lipstick wheeled like a tank onto the campus of Yale University during the Vietnam War, to Shrigley’s absurd thumbs up.

“Unity” was originally called “We’re No. #1,” a more assertive title, perhaps recalling the historical competition between the boroughs that reaches back to the 19th century. “Unity” is a traditional and fairly conservative work, accompanied in the official news release by a statement that sounds politician-worthy: “This sculpture is a homage to, and celebration of, the unique and multifaceted character of the borough of Brooklyn,” Thomas says. “The spirit of Brooklyn has always been about upward mobility and connection to roots.”

Perhaps Thomas is saluting the new Brooklyn — the one of rising property values and more anodyne art. A raised fist, like the black power gesture at the 1968 Olympics that inspired and galvanized so many people, appears on the handle of Thomas’s comb sculpture, “All Power to the People.” That bold attitude feels more like the Brooklyn of yore.

Not having walked the Brooklyn Bridge in several years, I decided to cross Saturday after seeing “Unity” installed. When I reached the Manhattan side there were vendors selling tchotchkes, including a sign that said, “No Stupid People Beyond This Point.” As a longtime resident of Brooklyn, I would be perfectly happy to have a 22-foot bronze sign with that message posted at the entrance to Brooklyn.

Make that a 100-foot sign.

© 2019 The New York Times Company










Today's News

November 12, 2019

Asheville Art Museum re-opens after major three-year expansion project

The National Gallery launches public appeal to save Orazio Gentileschi's The Finding of Moses for future generations

Jitters before New York's art 'gigaweek'

Centuries old warships linked to 'Vasa' found in Sweden

Louvre Abu Dhabi marks two years, without da Vinci

Marsden Hartley's Birch Grove, autumn leads Bonhams American Art sale in New York

Sotheby's to offer property from Spetchley Park, one of Britain's great Regency houses

Lyon & Turnbull's MODERN MADE auction will turn the spotlight on the West Cornwall fishing town

Works by Margaret MacDonald, Josef Hoffmann and Alphonse Mucha come under the hammer at Dorotheum

Meadows Museum announces a new collaboration with Fundación ARCO

A sculpture for Brooklyn's new golden age?

Morphy's gallery resonates with sounds of antique coin-op and gambling machines in run-up to November auction

Stephen Dixon, author of experimental novels and stories, dies at 83

Thai convent weaves 'beautiful' robes for Pope Francis visit

Syria puppeteer offers Idlib children breathing space

Vivaldi reworked to 'make climate change audible'

Christie's to offer the David Little Silver Collection of Early English Silver

Keith Flint Collection surpasses expectations

Teresa Iarocci Mavica appointed commissioner of the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

J. Garrett Auctioneers' November 2nd-4th auction grosses over $2 million

Diana Greenwald named new Assistant Curator of the Collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Major survey of Barry Le Va's early work on view at Dia:Beacon

Phillips names Lori Spector as Regional Director for Switzerland




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful