~’THE SOCRATES ANNUAL 2018′ . . CLOSING PARTY / PART II . . AMY BRENER, LEANDER MIENARDUS KNUST, SHERWIN BANFIELD
MORE PIX !!!!
‘THE SOCRATES ANNUAL 2018’ – CLOSING PARTY / Sunday, March 24, 2019
see: SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK – SOCRATES ANNUAL 2018 EXHIBITION
changing gears !!
heading into the light, literally & yet still . . very very curious.
AMY BRENER, ‘FORT-DRESS’, 2018.
steel, plexiglas, resin, pigment, found objects. 12 x 3 x 3 ft.
although quite static, the piece lifts upwards, translucent, pink and fluttery.
it must really glow in strong sunlight, unfortunately this day was a bit overcast.
‘FORT-DRESS’ . . “is a partial shelter within an abstraction of the female form. Viewers may walk into the back inhabiting the dress as if wearing it, and look out through its panels made of translucent pink resin and embedded with an arsenal of functional tools and gadgets.”
~SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK – AMY BRENER
also speaks to re-cycling, but more in terms of . . memory jars ?
memory jar of the street / of random foundness.
civilization / tools.
future forward / contemplation.
from translucent pink – to BLUE !!
again, one can only imagine how gorgeous these transparent blues are, on a sunny day.
LEANDER MIENARDUS KNUST, ‘Re-Material Wall’, 2018.
hot rolled steel, reclaimed pine, soil, golden trumpet vine, glass jars, copper sulfate and water, copper piping, rubber coated wire, polychrome wire, solar panel.
10 x 2 x 2 ft.
“The solar panel atop Leander Mienardus Knust’s ‘Re-Material Wall’, powers an electroforming process that slowly transfers copper molecules from suspended pipes to individual wires each floating in a solution-filled jar. Over time these molecules accumulate and take unique forms as a physical trace of their carrier electricity, while the steel rusts, wood warps, vines grow, and piping disappears.”
~LEANDER MIENARDUS KNUST – PROJECT / SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK
it’s interesting to contemplate how static re: objects . . Amy Brener’s piece is, and how ‘active’ this one is re: its objects.
in both, objects become: subjects. archival artifacts in Amy’s / decomposing science in Leander’s.
in both – colored light flickers about, animating the ‘composition’.
I’ve seen Amy’s work before, most notably up at Bobo’s Hudson Valley Art & Music Fest, a few summers ago – but this is my first time coming upon Leander.
also a show stopper. in a real nice way. plus science is cool.
LEANDER MEINARDUS KNUST, b. Philadelphia 1991, now lives & works in NYC. received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015. “His work reflects an interest in growth and decay, and he uses methods that demonstrate the process of change and ephemera.”
~LEANDER MEINARDUS KNUST / ARTIST BIO – SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK
SHERWIN BANFIELD and his 3 part sculpture, ‘A CYPHER IN QUEENS’, 2018.
steel, winterstone, wood, resin, cement, paper.
9 x 10 x 4 ft.
while most of the projects centered on human-made objects, whether sheltering, harming, self-destructing, questionable, encasing, and even embracing nature / 2 projects were straight-out . . . PORTRAITS.
unlike ANTONE KONST’S imaginary, world-weary but giving ‘Free Peddler’, SHERWIN BANFIELD’S sculpture grouping was about real people, now dead. further these 3 men are cultural heroes that belong to the Queens community, as Queens is the NYC borough where the Socrates Sculpture Park is situated, this proved to be a deeply emotional work, very moving, against a field of theory, in a sense.
his was a memorial to reality.
the abstract designs, a kind of graphic ‘street code’ – on the reverse of the columns, were just as compelling as the realistic, powerful faces.
SHERWIN BANFIELD’S . . ‘A CYPHER IN QUEENS’,
“is a 3-part audio sculpture combining the busts of Queens’ Hip Hop legends Jam Master Jay, Phife Dawg, and Prodigy – with their music. The sculptural forms are inspired by stacked speaker boxes seen on streets during Carnival celebrations & . . ‘slit gongs’, tall painted wood musical instruments made by the Tin Mweleun peoples of Ambrym Island in the Pacific Ocean.”
~SHERWIN BANFIELD PROJECT – SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK
note: a ‘Hip Hop Cypher’ . . is a ‘participatory gathering of onlookers forming a circle to experience the frequencies of a freestyle battle between Emcees, DJs or breakdancers.’ (the web)
Mr. Banfield was born in Trinidad & Tobago in 1976, and lives & works in Astoria, Queens.
see: SHERWIN BANFIELD / BIO – SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK
SHERWIN BANFIELD “received his BFA from Parsons, The New School for Design in 1999. He works primarily in illustration, sculpture and painting. A dedicated portraitist, Banfield believes people’s stories can be told through gesture, texture, and composition.” (Socrates Sculpture Park bio)
which makes his ‘graphics’ (re: the advanced ‘schooling’), even more . . compelling.
soulful. wild. expressionistic. unpredictable. deeply of the street. etc. etc.
there seems to be a lot of his island culture – still deep at heart.
P / PRODIGY
JMJ / JAM MASTER JAY
5 – PHIFE DAWG
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH