AUSTIN, TX.- Created using repurposed materials, Hurlyburly (2016) by Orly Genger was unveiled to the public at the mouth of Waller Creek, adjacent to the Waller Creek Boathouse (74 Trinity Street) on March 5, 2016.

Waller Creek Conservancy and The Contemporary Austin recently announced a new partnership that will serve as a catalyst for creating new public art initiatives. The first exhibition features a new, large-scale interactive art installation by internationally renowned artist Orly Genger, near the mouth of Waller Creek.

“This is an exciting time for the community as we collaborate with The Contemporary Austin to bring artists such as Orly Genger to engage and shape a vibrant public art space for Austinites,” said Peter Mullan, Waller Creek Conservancy CEO. “As we begin the transformation of Waller Creek, we have a unique opportunity to integrate a significant public art program into its future, bringing art and landscape together in the heart of Austin to create unique and uplifting experiences for the public.”

The installation of Orly Genger’s Hurlyburly is the first realization of a new and ongoing partnership for public art initiatives between Waller Creek Conservancy and The Contemporary Austin. Future installations will include works by significant local and national artists, including Austin-based artists Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, whose interactive sculpture Missing Truffaut (2014) will be installed first at The Contemporary Austin’s Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria and, in the future, along Waller Creek.

“At The Contemporary Austin, we are so thrilled to watch as our ‘museum without walls’ philosophy begins to take shape,” said Louis Grachos, Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director of The Contemporary Austin. “Living among original works of art of this caliber has a positive effect on individuals and on a citizenry as a whole. Thanks to the visionary support of the boards of directors of both The Contemporary and Waller Creek Conservancy, Austinites and visitors will have the chance to develop relationships with incredibly important works such as Hurlyburly by Orly Genger. I expect this and future collaborative installations will become beloved parts of the city’s fabric.”

Genger’s first work in Austin, Current (2014), was installed in the amphitheater at The Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria in 2014. This previous work, an elegant, serpentine-like sculpture painted in gray that cascaded down from the hill and out onto a platform at the edge of the lagoon, invited the public to interact with and move around it. Genger’s new work Hurlyburly (2016) likewise will respond to and evoke the nuances of its context, inviting the public into its midst and bringing renewed attention to the environment around Waller Creek.

“Great cities do big things, and Orly Genger’s sculpture at the mouth of Waller Creek is big in all senses of the word,” said Austin Mayor Steve Adler. “I am proud to be Mayor of a city where we can have a public-art installation like Hurlyburly. This feeds our soul as a community, and I hope it will spur further work along Waller Creek.”

HURLYBURLY (2016)
Blending large-scale sculpture techniques with an expanded notion of craft and textile, New York City–based artist and designer Orly Genger creates organic forms and site-specific installations from painted swaths of woven rope. With the help of assistants, Genger crochets, weaves, and knots heavy twine over the course of many months to create a single, often massive, work. In recent projects, she has used recycled lobster rope purchased by the artist from fishermen in local communities, a gesture that has both positive economical and social purposes, bringing briny or sea-frozen coils of twine into her studio, cleaning it first, then knotting and painting it. Genger’s completed works are painterly, evoking three-dimensional manifestations of 1950s abstract Color Field canvases while recalling the simple forms and techniques of 1960s Minimalists.

Hurlyburly, Orly Genger’s new installation on Waller Creek in Downtown Austin, comes from this series of works created using repurposed lobster rope; in this case much of the material has been repurposed once again, as it has been produced using the same expanses of rope that had previously been woven and knotted for the installation Current (2014) at The Contemporary Austin’s Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park. Giving these recycled materials new life, Hurlyburly is a massive outdoor piece of painted and hand-knotted rope that stretches across an area directly adjacent to the mouth of Waller Creek. Recalling the languid flow of the river, the undulating, woven structure is expected to become a focal point in downtown Austin, inviting visitors to interact with each other, with the work, and with the surrounding parkland.

Hurlyburly will be on view through February 2017.

ORLY GENGER
Orly Genger (American, born 1979 in New York City, New York) currently lives in New York City and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA from Brown University in 2001 and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002.

Genger’s recent solo projects include Undertone at SCAD museum of Art in Savannah, GA (2014); Boys Cry Too at Hermann Park in Houston, TX (2014); Red, Yellow and Blue at Madison Square Park in New York City (2013); and Whole at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (2008). Genger’s work is included in the collections of several museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH; and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Rappaport Prize, founded by the Phyllis & Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation, whose mission is to promote leadership in public policy, medical research, and art.