Each summer, The Fund for Park Avenue commissions large-scale works by major artists for the medium running from 52nd to 65th Streets. While we wait for the next installation, George Rickey, now postponed until Fall of 2021, let us take a look back to the seven Santiago Calatrava pieces, commissioned for the summer of 2015.
From June through November of 2015, seven commissioned sculptures by Santiago Calatrava ran from 52nd Street to 57th Street, along Park Avenue. Each piece was created from painted aluminum and ranging in size to eighteen-feet tall.
In describing the seven Park Avenue sculptures, three red, two silver, and two black, Calatrava said that “their relation to the natural world suggests a link between man and nature,” implying the sculptures are found objects in a human forest.
The sculptures reside practically in the artist’s back yard, since he purchased three adjacent townhouses on Park Avenue between 69th and 70 streets ~ where he lives with his wife, another for work, and a third town house used as living quarters for his three grown sons.
In the above image of the Calatrava’s installation labeled S4, Urs Fischer’s Big Clay #4 can be seen in the background on the Seagrams Building Plaza at 52nd Street.
While the Park Avenue installation was on view, Calatrava was in the process of finishing work on The Oculus, downtown’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub.
Continuing with major downtown projects, the artist was commissioned to design St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church located across from the 9/11 Memorial, which will be completed and open in time for the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in 2021.
The seven sculptures along Park Avenue were made possible through the NYC Parks, The Fund for Park Avenue, and the now-shuttered Marlborough Gallery NYC.
Read Travel + Leisure’s interview with Santiago Calatrava about this installation.