Stephen Glassman's White Tail Plaza Transforms a Corporate Complex into a Meditative Retreat |
 |
 |
| Written by rubin |
| Monday, 15 June 2009 02:09 |
|
Stephen Glassman’s Venice studio is engaged in the creation of large-scale permanent national and international public art works. He represents a new generation of public artists that, in addition to a studio and gallery history, have always created work on the street -- art for art’s sake in a social context.  At the center of Glassman’s
pond-shaped White Tail Plaza are two rock “islands” featuring integrated seating
and a view of indigenous grasses and trees. Come twilight, the islands glow from
within to become the plaza’s illumination. A maelstrom of steel emerges from the
larger of these islands and unwinds toward the sky evoking an aviary space.
Across the parking lot just beyond the periphery, a third sculpture rises and
arches over a campus sidewalk to create a corporate entryway. In total, the
sculptures create a 4000-square-foot plaza by fusing forms from nature with
steel and light. The weavings and unravelings suggest both natural and man-made
systems. Woodland Hills was once riparian grassland -- the L.A. River originally ran through here before it was concreted and channeled away to make room for twentieth century development. This history and metamorphosis is memorialized in the work. White Tail Plaza is by design both contemplative and confrontational, and speaks to the complicated relationship between man and nature. White Tail Plaza is a public/private commission of LNR Property Corporation (www.lnrwarnercenter.com) and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Stephen Glassman has worked in many diverse venues and mediums over the past 29 years including : Paris Opera, Moscow Circus, Santa Monica Museum of Art, White Columns, Artists’ Space, and Thomas Solomon… and collaborators include Jonathan Borofsky, Philippe Petit, Sarah Elgart, and Oguri. His work caught international attention in the early 1990s when he began creating large-scale freeform structural bamboo installations in devastated urban sites around Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney King Riots, Malibu Fires and Northridge Quake. These works became symbols of resiliency in their L.A. communities. Recent and significant projects by Stephen Glassman include the Sylvia Campuan Bridge in Ubud Bali, SK8I80, sculpture for a Skate Park in Salt Lake City, UT, and Southeast Shear in Pine Bluff, AR. The Arkansas project, a NEA / Hillary Clinton White House Millennium Fellowship, was an 80' tall x 90' wide x 140' long freeform timber construction and plaza in this languishing Arkansas bayou city. Currently in production is the Soto Bridge project here in Los Angeles, as well as sculptures commissioned to debut over the coming year in Calgary, Canada; San Jose, CA; and Seattle, WA. Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
Related Articles :
