Public Art Fund will unveil its third summer 2018 installation this week in City Hall Park. The installations, entitled Kitchen Trees are the creation of the artist B. Wurtz.
Five colorful tree-stand-sculptures surround the historic fountain, each sprouting thin wire ‘limbs’ that hold everything but the kitchen sink. You’ll see kitchen utensils, pots and pans, plastic fruits and vegetables, colanders, and artifacts reflecting our kitchenations ~ all swaying from wire limbs.
Each sculpture rises from fifteen to eighteen feet high, with a ten to twelve foot diameter. The pop-art, New York-based artist, B. Wurtz, is known for creating around themes of food, clothing or shelter, in what he considers to be “basic needs for human happiness.”
We stood underneath, squinting to focus on each ordinary kitchen find, noticing how unordinary they appeared, dangling high above, glistening in the sun ~ as if from one of the creative posts we find in Improvised Life. I know now that what is stuffed in cabinets and drawers is meant to be seen ~ on walls and hanging from the ceiling!
Indeed, the artist casts everyday items in a new light, as he explained, “I thought if I used really, really ordinary, overlooked stuff that tends to be ignored, it gave me more of an opportunity to add something to it…it makes it something else but it doesn’t obliterate what it is. That is what I was striving for, honoring the things for how they serve us but making them look a bit classical and elegant so people can see them in a different light.”
B. Wurtz was born in Pasadena, California, and lives and works in New York. Follow him on Instagram at #bwurtz.
B. Wurtz: Kitchen Trees will be on view to December 7, 2018 in City Hall Park. The exhibition is curated by Public Art Fund Associate Curator, Daniel S. Palmer.
B. Wurtz: Kitchen Trees is #3 in the Public Art Fund summer series. Still on view ~ Erwin Wurm: Hot Dog Bus through August 26 ~ and Tauba Auerback: Flow Separation through May 12, 2018.
In addition, Yinka Shonibare MBE: Wind Sculpture (SG)1 is still on view at Doris C. Freedman Plaza to October 14, 2018.
All of the installations are part of our 45 suggestions of Exhibits, Events & Installations not to miss in August.