THE ARTISTS OF ONE WORLD TRADE CENTER CURATED BY EDELMAN ARTS
PHOTOGRAPHED BY MICHAEL MUNDY
THE ARTISTS OF ONE WORLD TRADE CENTER New York, NY — Edelman Arts in collaboration with The Durst Organization and The Port Authority of NY & NJ presents a public art collection curated for One World Trade Center. One World Trade Center marks the beginning of a new future in the landscape of New York architecture in itself, but also in collaboration with the spirit of art and with it, the diversity of people in this great city. The collection includes a monumental painting by José Parlá, three paintings by Doug Argue, two paintings by Fritz Bultman, a group of seven works on canvas by Greg Goldberg, and a towering sculpture by Bryan Hunt. The collection will remain on view in the North, South, and Sixty Fourth floor lobbies of One World Trade Center, where the installations will be enjoyed by a projected 30,000 visitors per day.
“The role of the art in One World Trade Center is to create life within the building. It’s not just about white marble walls, it’s about spirit and life within. From the building’s point of view, it’s about branding, and something that is beyond the simple walls. I hope we have accomplished our most important goal in the partnership formed by the Durst Organization, Edelman Arts, and these special artists—the incentive to raise heads and eyes from diverting handhelds, to look at the art, to respond, and to be inspired.” — Asher Edelman
JOSE PARLA
JOSÉ PARLÁ ONE: Union of the Senses 2014 South Lobby
ONE: Union of the Senses, 2014 This painting symbolizes a synthesis and unity between José, the city, and ONE WTC. It is inspired by the energy of NYC. The lines and colors represent the diversity of the cultures in New York while the textures and layers represent the resilience of its people. “With the title, I wanted to convey unity among all people. I wanted to use as many colors as possible. The diversity of color represents people.” —José Parlá
JOSÉ PARLÁ Brooklyn, 2014
José Parlá’s 90 foot mural, his largest yet, and the largest painting to be mounted in any public space in New York City. Jose lives and works in Brooklyn. His paintings both large and small, are widely collected both privately and institutionally, including murals at Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
JOSÉ PARLÁ Studio Brooklyn, 2014
DONALD MARTINY
“Donald Martiny’s work forces us to question the established definitions that form the backbone of our understanding of painting as both a pursuit and a product, and of paint as a medium. In challenging the viewer in these ways, it is not only visually exciting but intellectually invigorating.” Deborah Swallow The Courtauld Institute of Art
Lenape 2015 Polymer and pigment on aluminum South Lobby
A CONVERSATION WITH DONALD MARTINY Born in Schenectady, New York in 1953, Martiny studied at the School of the Visual Arts, The Art Students League in New York, New York University and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His work is widely exhibited and collected around the world. He lives and works in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Martiny tells us about his inspiration for the two large scale paintings he created for One World Trade Center, and about his work process. The experience for me was quite unique and challenging on many levels. These were the largest pieces I had ever proposed to date for installation, and it took months to settle on a workable fabrication site, as my North Carolina studio could not accommodate the size we wanted. We ultimately decided it was best to make the works on site where they were to be installed. With this decision, I moved my entire studio into the west side of the south lobby of the building. The area was cordoned off, my materials and gear all passed stringent security levels, and for two months I built and completed the paintings in that lobby studio. Normally I always work alone in my
studio. So working behind a curtain with an estimated 25,000 people passing through that lobby every day was pretty new and took a bit of getting used to. I needed time to reestablish my normal intensity of focus and working rhythms. What was most remarkable for me was the emotional power of the site and the incredible light that streamed through the tall, vertical windows. Being on-site I was able to respond directly to that changing light, the space and the movement around me. Tell us what you were thinking about? First and foremost, I wanted the works to relate strongly to the building and place. I love New York City, and One World Trade Center is among the most iconic buildings in the Western Hemisphere. It is an exquisitely beautiful structure, pointing up and reflecting the sky. I see it as a symbol of hope. With this in mind, I turned to the Hudson River School painters: Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, etc. That was my starting point that made sense to me. I was attracted to the depictions of the light on the river in that region and particularly the sunrises that felt hopeful and forward-looking. I drew upon the feeling that those works invoked in me, and it was fitting
too that the building and site are situated at the mouth of the Hudson River. I have always felt strongly that painting is a language and have sometimes named whole series of works after extinct languages. For these two works, I named the paintings after the two extinct languages (Lenape and Unami) that were spoken in Lower Manhattan before European settlers arrived. I started by rejecting the use of a rectangular canvas or ground, preferring free-form gestural compositions. For me, rectangular shaped paintings have a historical reference to a window or portal that the viewer looks through to experience the work, resulting in a sense of observation and separation. I wanted these works at 1WTC to live in the same space and time as the viewer. Specifically, I wanted viewer and work to coexist, for the work to offer a direct and visceral experience without illusion or separation. For these two pieces, the figure or gesture is the painting and the painting is the gesture, with no other shapes or components to compromise the integrity and power of the brushstroke.
DONALD MARTINY Unami 2015 Polymer and pigment on alminum North Lobby
The space between the viewer and the surface of the painting interests me; also how the painting’s form impacts its surrounding area, how each painting has a dialogue with the room or space. I wanted to be physically present in these works. That is why for these paintings I didn’t use brushes, I painted directly with my hands. These works are a record of my physicality in this specific time and place. —Donald Martiny
DOUG ARGUE
DOUG ARGUE Genesis 2006-2009 South Lobby
The monumental painting, Genesis, measuring 13 by 19 feet, is one of three large scale paintings by Doug Argue that hang in the South Lobby. These works hold their own against the soaring 65-foot-tall space. In these works, Argue incorporates stenciled lettering, which he has appropriated from various literature, like Moby Dick. The text is stretched on the canvas until it is no longer decipherable. In this painting, he has extracted the letters from the Book of Genesis, symbolizing the beginning of something new, something extraordinary.
DOUG ARGUE Genesis 2006-2009 South Lobby
Randomly Placed Percentages 2009-2010 Oil on canvas South Lobby
Randomly Placed Exact Percentages and Isotropic hang side by side in the South Lobby and are evocative of the universe, exploring themes of science, mathematics, and language. “The paintings are about the possibilities of new combinations that expand the idea of how things can change in an infinite number of possible ways. I hope people like the paintings and see something different in them every time they look at them.” — Doug Argue DOUG ARGUE Isotropic 2009-2013 Oil on canvas South Lobby
DOUG ARGUE Isotropic 2009-2013 Oil on canvas South Lobby
Doug Argue’s current work expresses a sense of
He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the
the infinite by fusing elements of the visual arts,
Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica; Edelman Arts,
science, and language, often in mural-sized works.
New York, Haunch of Venison, New York; and As-
He explores the tradition of painting while employ-
sociated American Artists, New York; among oth-
ing contemporary concepts of realism, abstraction,
ers. He has a solo exhibition to take place in Venice
and expressionism. Recently, he has incorporated
during the 2015 Venice Biennale.
computer-manipulated forms (notably individual letters) in many of his paintings. Earlier figurative
Argue was recipient of the Rome Prize (1977) and of
and representational works have included highly de-
a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant (1995) among
tailed and often monumentally scaled depictions of
other awards. He attended Bemidji State University,
leaves, cock’s combs, books and other subjects that,
Bemidji, MN and the University of Minnesota, Minne-
at times, edge towards the conceptual. Throughout
apolis, MN and was born in St. Paul, MN. He lives with
his career, Argue has combined highly disciplined
his wife in New York City.
control and investigation of material with expansive and dynamic compositions that reflect his fascination with our ongoing evolution in the fields of art, language, and culture. Argue’s work is found in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, and numerous corporate and important private collections.
DOUG ARGUE Randomly Placed Percentages
2009-2010 Oil on canvas South Lobby
BRYAN HUNT
Axis Mundi is a totem, a form in perpetual balance, a structure that holds light and air. Like Bryan Hunt’s early airships, it explores the metaphysical presence of floating and orbiting forms.
BRYAN HUNT Axis Mundi, 2014 64th Floor Lobby
BRYAN HUNT Axis Mundi, 2014 64th Floor Lobby
BRYAN HUNT Axis Mundi, 2014 Wainscott Studio Long Island
Bryan Hunt (b. 1947) has a formidable career as a modernist sculptor and painter with works acquired by over 50 public collections around the world. Locally—the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan Museum. Hunt’s work is also in many distinguished private collections around the world. Hunt attended the Whitney’s Independent Study Program in 1972, had his first solo exhibition at Jack Glenn Gallery in Newport Beach in 1975, and soon after at the Clocktower in New York City. Hunt’s first solo show in Europe, organized by artist James Lee Byars, was Empire State, Phobos, and Universal Joint at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. In 1978 Hunt was included in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s “Young American Artists.” He was in the Whitney Museum Biennials in 1979, 1981, and 1985, and was also featured at the 1980 Venice Biennale.
Hunt’s first commissioned sculpture was in 1979 when
ennial exhibition (1900-2000). In 2006, the New York
Edgar Kaufmann Jr. asked him to create a sculpture
City Parks Department commissioned an artwork, Co-
for Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Fallingwater House
enties Ship, for Lower Manhattan at the historic Co-
in Western Pennsylvania. Hunt’s public commissions
enties Slip. The 20-foot-high stainless steel and glass
are on an international scale. His work, Big Twist,
sculpture was awarded the New York City Design
was installed in the Museum of Modern Art’s Sculp-
Excellence Award (2006). Hunt created and installed
ture Garden in 1978; it was later loaned to the White
ten Waterfall sculptures on Park Avenue in New York
House Rose Garden. In 1985 the City of Barcelona,
City between 52nd and 57th Streets, in 2011, part of a
Spain commissioned a large scale sculpture. In 1992
changing public art outdoor exhibition. He lives and
Fall Lake Falls, a public artwork, was installed at the
works in Wainscott, New York, and also maintains a
Mori building, Shiroyama Trust Tower in Minato, To-
studio in New York City.
kyo. Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad donated Hunt’s Empire State Building to the Whitney Museum of Art, and it was included in the museum’s Cent-
GREG GOLDBERG
GREG GOLDBERG Seven Paintings 64th Floor Lobby
As a response to the space and light of the Sky Lobby, Greg Goldberg divided his paintings into three groups each built on a primary color: red, yellow, and blue. Within the groups, webs of intense color serve as a counterpoint to the brilliant white space surrounding them. While each group has its own color identity and temperature, similar pigments appear in all three, providing a sense of continuity and flow.
Greg Goldberg works in natural light and his paintings develop over a number of months. The color choices are determined by the seasonal quality of light and the evolving structure of the piece. There is a tension between the structural order and the motion of the brushwork. As the paintings evolve, the intensity and density of color becomes a complex web, moving across and into space. The resulting visual history determines the character of each painting.
“My first impression of the 64th Floor Sky Lobby at ONE WTC was how vast and luminous it was, like being in the clouds, but with a sense of structure. The space seemed to reflect the sky. The wall reserved for my work is separated into several units, parallel to a continuous ribbon of massive north-facing windows. It is my hope that the sensuality, richness, and complexity of the color structure are animated by the light and the viewer.” — GREG GOLDBERG
GREG GOLDBERG Studio Cornwall, CT. 2014
FRITZ BULTMAN
FRITZ BULTMAN Gravity of Nightfall 1961 Oil on canvas North Lobby
FRITZ BULTMAN Gravity of Nightfall 1961 Oil on canvas North Lobby
Gravity of Nightfall and Blue Triptych-Intrusion Into the Blue are the only works selected for One World Trade Center that is not by a living artist. The bold large-scale oil compositions fill the canvases with intense swirls of blue, red, yellow, and drips of paint. They adorn the tower’s north lobby. Bultman was an American first generation Abstract Expressionist artist who died in 1983. He was a member of a group nicknamed The Irascibles alongside his contemporaries Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. The American painter and printmaker Robert Motherwell called him “one of the most splendid, radiant and inspired painters of my generation.”
FRITZ BULTMAN Blue Triptych-Intrustion Into The Blue 1961 Oil on canvas North Lobby
“Nothing captures the spirit of the Abstract Expressionist moment like the two masterpieces: Gravity of Nightfall & Blue Triptych, epic examples of Fritz Bultman’s power and bold technique. The action and the intensely expressive colors take us right back to the moment when New York was the capitol of world art, the place to be if you were a genius of his magnitude and ready to make a major statement of this level of originality.” –Charles Riley
MICHAEL MUNDY, Photographer. “It’s been an honor working with The Durst Organization, photographing the extraordinary artists that are a part of One World Trade Center. Artists are people I admire the most. They are passionate, creative, and dedicated. If eyes are the windows to the soul, then artists are the windows to our cultural soul. It’s through their eyes that allow us to look deeply within ourselves. Since the studio is where it happens, it’s a privilege to be invited in and to see the process of their work.” Michael Mundy is the Editorial Director of DV8 Magazine and author of the blog, An Afternoon With... where he captures the lives and homes of New York’s artists and creatives. Michael’s photographs have been published in Vogue, W Magazine, Town & County, House & Garden and Wallpaper. Clients also include Architectural Digest, Travel & Leisure, Baker, Calvin Klein, J. Crew, Frette, Grey Goose, Halston, Hervé Leger, Kohler, Morgan Hotel Group, Andre Balazs Hotels and more.
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