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ARCHIVES | 1982

A CRITIC'S GUIDE TO THE OUTDOOR SCULPTURE SHOWS
By GRACE GLUECK JUNE 11, 1982
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So long as there's outdoors, there'll be outdoor art.'' That was the confident
prediction of an environmental artist the other day, and this city certainly bears him
out. Not content with confinement to museums and galleries, artists have always
been moved to challenge - or embellish - both nature and architecture, and there's
nothing like the opportunity offered by New York, particularly its spectacular
environment.
Plazas, fields, woods, walls, trees, traffic islands, rivers, building fronts and even
roofs - nothing, it seems, is safe from their invasive talents.
This summer, as before, you can find the evidence of this creativity all over
town. The entries range from works by old masters, such as George Rickey, to those
of the new and trendy, like Jedd Garet and Keith Haring. Pitting their talents against
the hazards of site, public opinion and the weather, they've managed in the process
to enhance our lives.
Wave Hill
The most site-tailored sculpture show in town can usually be found at Wave Hill
in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Each summer, to the rolling lawns and well-
tracked woods of this city-owned park and cultural center, the curatorial team of
Linda Macklowe and Suzanne Randolph entices a covey of Manhattan-based talents
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 splendid settings and magnificent vistas offered by the 28-acre tract, makes up a
minisurvey of the current scene, on view through Oct. 1.
''New Perspectives,'' this summer's show, boasts the work of nine artists,
ranging in style from Minimal to Expressionist, from decorative to Conceptual. The
trendiest contributors are Jedd Garet and Keith Haring, two much-hyped talents of
the ''new'' figurative persuasion. Mr. Haring, a subway grafittist gone above ground,
has taken a mass-produced fiberglass Venus in a clam shell, painted her hair a punk
pink, her shell orange and, with the aid of another graffitist identified only as ''L.A.
2,'' worked her over with a felt marker. The double kitsch result enlivens the staid
terrace behind the Wave Hill manor house.
Mr. Garet, who may have missed his vocation as a set designer, has raised on a slope
near the river an outrageously stagey temple ruin painted bright red. On its
theatrically canted platform lies a huge stylized silver head, near a bronze brazier
that calls for an eternal flame. A gray androgynous figure broods on the platform's
steps. An essay in translating two-dimensional drawing to 3-D, this campy homage
to mannerism also manages to be a work of startling presence.
So, unexpectedly encountered along a wooded trail, is Daisy Youngblood's life-
size painted cement figure of an Indian woman, sitting cross-legged on a pile of
wood. This meditative priestess evokes the vanished tribes that may have once
stalked these very woods and her placement is a triumph of siting. In crazy contrast
nearby, Justen Ladda has painted a trompe l'oeil housefly, far bigger than life and
twice as unnatural, on the walls and floor of an abandoned swimming pool. It's
menacing enough to make you wish for a giant swatter.
Two godfathers of Minimal art, Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre, also are present, as
well as Bernard Tschumi, Michael Luchs and John Torreano. Wave Hill, at West
249th Street and Independence Avenue, is open daily from 10 A.M. to 5:30 P.M.
Admission is free Monday through Friday; on weekends and holidays, it is $2 for
adults, $1 for the elderly, and free for children under 14. For directions, call 549-
2055.
Wards Island Two bustling nonprofit groups are prime movers in the push to
place outdoor works: AREA (Artists Representing Environmental Art), directed by
Dorothea M. Silverman, which helps match sculptors with outdoor sites, and OIA,
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into service as showcases for art. For the last few years, the two have shared
 exhibition space on the 122 acres of lawn and woods comprising Wards Island, home
of the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, which sponsors the exhibitions.
Anything and everybody can be found in this wonderful hodgepodge of a
sculpture show that this summer, after suffering some damage by vandals, deploys
nearly 100 works around the island. For the highly visible shoreline settings, five
AREA artists have designed ambitious site-specific works, some of which invite the
viewer to participate. Joe Moss, for example, contributes ''Water, Wind, Earth and
Me,'' whose Minimal components - a large disk that ''cups'' the sound of the river for
the listener's ear, a triangular sail flapping on a mast - with a backdrop of a long,
bright orange railing, are distinctly nautical in feeling.
In Tim Watkins's cheerful ''New Wave,'' ranging 140 feet along the shoreline,
wind-activated wave and fish shapes dance against a rollicking background of blue
waves webbed into the shoreline fence.
Inland works by AREA artists can be found in two locations: on the lawns west
of the psychiatric center's main buildings and in a romantic sunken section known as
the Roman Garden. Among the more striking works on the west lawns are Barry
Gunderson's feisty ''Grazers,'' a cluster of five brightly painted wooden insects of
uncertain species; Ruth Hardinger's ''The Expanded Moment,'' a circular
arrangement of six tentlike components of crumpled black steel mesh held in tension
at bottom by straight steel ground cables and at their tops by a tangle of wires and
tubing, and Caryl Stone's ''Tree Root,'' a rough, upright circle of knotty, gnarled roots
in a bronze patina. But the star is Jonathan Kirk's picturesque saga in black steel, a
wrecked ship's hull caught among decrepit pilings.
In the Roman Garden stand four works of a more totemic order. One, Olivia
Sanders's ''Goliath'' has been toppled by vandals. Of the others, Jiro Naito's
''Revolve,'' an austere plinth of a figure, impresses with its suave stylization.
The OIA placements, assembled by Tom Klem, a member of the group, fan out
through the island and finding them - even with the aid of a special site map - is
often a challenge. Among the more visible pieces around the main building, however,
are Carol Bourgeois's ''Sylvia,'' an appealingly foolish harlequin suspended from a
tree, and a very Constructivist ministructure by Terry Lee Dill, an intricate platform
of white steel girders that, equipped with several viewing mirrors and holding a large
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 Farther back, under the approach to the Triborough Bridge that cuts across the
island, you'll find Francis O'Donnell's stirring ''Pierian Muse,'' a classical post and
lintel structure of three worn, painted wood columns (the middle one short of the
ground) topped by tarred wood beams; a very effective environmental work by Ilan
Averbuch in which a run of upright tree limbs supporting a horizontal beam plays off
against a low, semicircular fieldstone fence, and a fantasy piece, ''Instant Parade,'' by
Ame Gilbert, which, with large, cut-out horses and other toylike trappings, suggests a
childhood dream of a parade.
And there's much, much more. For adventurous walkers or bikers, Wards Island
- open daily from 10 A.M. to sundown - is accessible by way of the footbridge at 103d
Street and the East River Drive. It can also be reached by bus (M35 at the corner of
Lexington Avenue and 125th Street) and by car over the Triborough Bridge,
following Wards Island signs.
South Beach Center
Meanwhile, seeking new sites for itself, the OIA group has ventured out to
Staten Island and the vast reaches of the South Beach Psychiatric Center. With the
spectacular backdrop of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, 12 works assembled by
Jeffrey Schiller, a member of OIA, are casually dispersed on the wide-open lawns
that face South Beach. Mr. Schiller himself contributes two welded steel pieces,
''Lilith'' and ''Weldment 96,'' totally abstract figure forms whose blocky parts are
seamed together by welds. Among other works of interest are Michael Malpass's big,
black-painted steel sphere, welded of junk machinery parts and perched on a grassy
hill; Don Porcaro's ''House of the Wind,'' a totemic figure of two tarred wooden
uprights, skirted and collared with planes of chipped limestone, and Christopher
Chevins's scattered trio of triangular structures with sides of plastic paneling framed
in black and placed askew on legs. '' And then there's Maggie Reilly's ''Maggie's Cat,''
an immense feline of papier-mache covered with cement that crouches before a large
ball. (The cat will eventually be painted by residents of the hospital.)
Yet somehow, the works here lack the pizazz of the bigger OIA offering at Wards
Island. Maybe it's this site, whose vastness, unencumbered by trees and away from
surrounding buildings, seems to confer insignificance. But it's worth a visit. From
Manhattan, the South Beach Psychiatric Center can be reached by the Staten Island
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bus stop. By car, cross the Verrazano Bridge, take the South Beach
 exit to Lily Pond Avenue (later becoming Father Capodanno Boulevard), turn right
at Seaview Avenue to the entrance. The grounds are open from 10 A.M. to sundown.
Individual outdoor works, new this year, include: ''Apparent Wind,'' by Page
Ogden. Pier 11 slip, Gouverneur Lane and South Street (one block south of Wall
Street): Miss Ogden has floated a small raft of bamboo cane, adorned with bright
sails and streamers, between two piers in the East River. The work is a statement of
her feeling for waterways ''as a life-giving source.'' Sponsored by the city's
Department of Ports and Terminals as part of its Pier 11 project, it has a whimsical,
funky presence but it's hard to see among the harbor's other attractions.
''Wheatfield,'' by Agnes Denes. Battery Park City landfill, Gate 3 (near South
Ferry slip): A real wheatfield, still at the stage where it looks like growing grass, lies
bravely amid the massive excavation rubble of Battery Park City. It reflects the
artist's environmental concerns and is intended to stand in poignant contrast to the
skyscrapers and construction sites that surround it. Who can criticize a wheatfield?
Especially one sponsored by the Public Art Fund, Inc.
''Eclipse,'' by Cristos Gianakos. Traffic island at West Broadway between
Chambers and Hudson Streets: This large, spare truncated pyramid of wood slats,
spaced in a latticelike grid and painted orange, stands out boldly in a nondescript
setting. A walk-through structure of angles and ramps, it expresses the artist's
interest in Greek and Egyptian ruins. But the work, also sponsored by the Public Art
Fund, bears an unfortunate resemblance to the construction frame of a big outdoor
sign.
''Neon for 42d Street,'' by Stephen Antonakos. East wall, 440 West 42d Street
(between Ninth and 10th Avenues): Four parts of arcs in red neon, mounted on a
painted blue wall and projecting above it, produce a light pattern on the wall as dusk
approaches, and are visible during the day as a linear design. A handsome work, the
neon complements two nearby trompe l'oeil architectural wall paintings, Art Deco in
theme, by Richard Haas, facing each other on Dyer Avenue. The works are
sponsored by the 42d Street Development Corporation as embellishment for the
strip of small theaters and commercial centers known as Theater Row, and welcome
they are.
''Crouching Dogs,'' by Charles Fahlen. Hammarskjold Plaza Sculpture Garden,
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stucco on plywood, guard the small flight of steps leading up to this plaza.
 The artist, who lives in Philadelphia, intends them to evoke the conventional
sculpture that has marked entrances from time immemorial (to wit, the lions at the
Public Library). But they are too small to be imposing in this space.
''Spiral Crown,'' by Don Gummer. Seagram Plaza, 375 Park Avenue (between
52d and 53d Streets): Eleven separate marble bases, each consisting of two planes
forming a corner angle, and lined with mankado, an orange stone from Minnesota,
are arranged in a circular configuration. Each base is surmounted by three slate
panels framed in steel, and tilted at an angle to the base, the whole forming an
''unconnected spiral shape,'' visible from the floors above as well as at ground level.
Unfortunately, the piece, sponsored by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., gives - at
ground level - a confusing view.
''Fragmentary Reflections of Ancient Passages,'' by Penny Kaplan. Garden of St.
Peter's Church, Lexington Avenue and 54th Street (outside the Citicorp Building): To
make this interior-exterior sculpture, the artist has placed a cluster of linear arches
painted in rich purple in the tiny garden that attaches to the rear of the church
building. And on the sanctuary balcony of the church itself, visible through a clear
glass window that gives on the garden, she's installed another, smaller cluster of
arches that serves as a mirror image for the one outside. A simple idea, but it comes
off handsomely.
''Double L Excentric Gyratory II,'' by George Rickey. Doris Freedman Plaza,
entrance to Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street: Two L-shaped stainless
steel paddles atop a wooden post gyrate with the wind currents, seemingly reaching
almost to spectator level as they move. The work continues Mr. Rickey's lifelong
interest in making an esthetic rapport with movement, although it does not have the
pleasing ethereality of some of his earlier works. It is sponsored by the Public Art
Fund.
A version of this review appears in print on June 11, 1982, on Page C00001 of the National edition with
the headline: A CRITIC'S GUIDE TO THE OUTDOOR SCULPTURE SHOWS.

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