ALICE AYCOCK

Opens July 24th

Much of my work in both the public and private spheres has been a meditation on the philosophical ramifications of technology from the simplest tool (arrowhead and the plow) to the computer. Many of these works have incorporated images of wheels and turbines and references to energy in the form of spirals, whirlwinds, whirlpools, spinning tops, whirly-gigs, and so on. For the Park Avenue project I tried to visualize the movement of wind energy as it flowed up and down the Avenue creating random whirlpools, touching down here and there and sometimes forming dynamic three-dimensional massing of forms. The sculptural assemblages suggest waves, wind turbulence, turbines, and vortexes of energy. One of the works, in particular, references the expressive quality of the wind through drapery and the chaotic beauty of fluid/flow dynamics. As much as the sculptures are obviously placed on the mall, I wanted the work to have a random, haphazard quality – in some cases, piling up on itself, in others spinning off into the air. Much of the energy of the city is invisible. It is the energy of thought and ideas colliding and being transmitted outward. The works are the metaphorical visual residue of the energy of New Your City. The pieces also have a reference to the practice of making cutout paper models of visual ideas in architecture and sculpture dating back to r Russian Constructivism. The concept I developed for Park Avenue is constructed of painted structural and sheet aluminum and fiberglass. The six proposals can be read from both sides of the avenue and the visual narrative plays to both the uptown and downtown movement of traffic patterns. Alice Aycock,2011

This exhibition was made possible with the support of: the artist, Salomon Contemporary and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin.