Art Art &Photos 14 Feb 2010 09:46 am
Mo’ Snow
- For some reason, whenever I step out into a newly snowed-upon setting, I feel obligated to take a picture. Consequently, I fill up the nearby Sunday Photo blog with snowy settings. Sorry about that.
It snowed this week. Not as heavily as they threatened on the newscasts, but it was heavy enough. (Right up to an hour before it ended, Al Roker was still forecasting 15 inches. We only had about 6.)
Regardless, it was white.
Memories of my first photography assignment in college – shoot white-on-white pictures – came rushing back. I didn’t aim for the white-on-white, but white was enough.
My first sight of 30th St. after entering the outdoor snowfest.
Park Avenue looking downtown from 30th St 6:30am.
Park Avenue bicycle rack.
My pictures were boring enough that I won’t get too tedious on you. But my friend, Steve Fisher, knows what to do with a camera, and he sent me some great stills, shot in Queens, that I have to share.
OK, let’s bring it back to Manhattan. Madison Square Park has had an art installation displayed for some time now. By sculptor, Mel Kendrick, Markers went up in September last year, but I wasn’t inspired enough to take pictures though it’s obviously monumental enough. It was supposed to have been removed at the end of December.
Now standing in snow, it looks different. The blacks look about 70% gray against the snow. Here it is. The writing comes from the official commentary by the Park.
Mel Kendrick – “Markers”
Kendrick’s Markers are cast in alternating layers of black and white concrete, resulting in bold striation that alludes to the layered stone found in Italian Gothic Cathedrals.
Standing over ten feet tall, the commanding scale of these sculptures echoes the grandeur of their home on the Oval lawn at the center of historic Madison Square Park.
By the way, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY
on 14 Feb 2010 at 11:00 am 1.Tom Carr said …
Michael, every time I see pictures of East Coast snow, (especially Manhattan’s) I’m reminded of why I now live in California. Cold is physical pain to me, and I can’t tell the difference between one and the other.
Even so, Mel Kendrick’s works are great, and I thank you for publishing these images. Now I don’t have to suffer in the &$%#*!! cold to look at them!
I can do without the Virgin Mary and the lawn jockey, though, apparently on the same lawn…
on 14 Feb 2010 at 12:30 pm 2.Pierre said …
The Kendrick sculptures are fascinating, at least in the photographs. They almost seem transparent, especially with any sort of architectural detail behind them which is all the more remarkable since they are made of concrete.
The patterns remind me of the camouflage applied to warships during World War II.
I’ve always liked how snow can transform even the most urban of environments. There are some beautiful images of New York City in the snow during the opening montage of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”. The city was in such a decline when that film was made but those images, tied to Gershwin’s music really created a beautiful, romantic representation of the city.
Pierre
on 16 Feb 2010 at 10:11 am 3.Tom Carr said …
These pictures remind me of when I was a teenager living on the Upper West Side near Central Park in the 80′s, and the city installed a whole series of large Henry Moore sculptures in the park. Those Moore works were bronzes on concrete pedestals, and I thought that they should have been made permanent, but they were removed after about six months.
Too bad, because they were of such stunning visual impact that I’d walk across the lower segment of the park just to look at them.
Mel Kendrick’s sculptures remind me of Moore’s, in both their scale and their boldness of form. They’re probably also temporary, but what in Manhattan isn’t?
Anything that appears to be enduring there is most likely an illusion— as was proven once and for all on September 11th, 2001.
on 16 Feb 2010 at 10:31 am 4.Michael said …
The sculptures are temporary. As I mentioned in the piece, they were scheduled to have been removed Dec 31, 2009. I imagine it’ll be tough removing them; all that concrete has to be heavy.
The Madison Square Park Conservancy will undoubtedly replace them with another art fixture. There’s regularly one to two of them each year; and they’ve all been interesting these past five years (since I’ve taken notice.)