Roxy Paine Creates Monumental Sculpture for 2009 Installation of Metropolitan Museum’s Roof Garden

Roxy Paine Creates Monumental Sculpture for
2009 Installation of Metropolitan Museum’s Roof Garden

Whom You Know just LOVES the Roof Garden! Peachy Deegan is counting down the days until it opens!

Installation dates:
April 28–October 25, 2009 (weather permitting)
28–
permitting)
Location:
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden

Conceptual artist Roxy Paine (American, b. 1966) has created a site-specific installation
for the 2009 season of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor
Roof Garden, the most dramatic outdoor space for sculpture in New York City. Roxy
Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom features a 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel
sculpture, Maelstrom (2009), that encompasses the nearly 8,000-square-foot Roof
Garden, and is the largest sculpture to have been installed on the roof of the
Metropolitan. Set against, and in dialogue with, the greensward of Central Park and its
architectural backdrop, this swirling entanglement of stainless- steel pipe showcases the
work of an artist keenly interested in the interplay between the natural world and the
built environment, as well as the human desire for order amid nature’s inherently
chaotic processes.
The exhibition is made possible by Bloomberg.
Additional support is provided by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.
The exhibition is also made possible in part by Jill and Peter Kraus.
Gary Tinterow, the Museum’s Engelhard Chairman of the Department of
Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, stated: “Roxy Paine has created
for the Metropolitan Museum his most remarkable work to date, a stunning sculpture
that commands the environment through interaction. I feel certain that our visitors
will marvel at the complexity of the structure, and delight in its beauty.”
A provocateur, Paine builds elaborate and complex constructions to address
conceptually complex concerns, providing fertile ground for thought and contemplation.
Since the mid-1990s, he has created a diverse body of work that falls into several
distinct yet related categories: naturalistic works (startlingly realistic, hand-formed
replicas of botanical forms and fungi, rendered with synthetic materials and featuring
various stages of growth and decay); machine-based works (intricate, computer-driven
machines that mechanically produce abstract paintings, sculptures, and drawings); and
a series of large-scale stainless-steel Dendroids, fabricated from industrial components.
In the latter category, Maelstrom is Paine’s most complex and ambitious sculpture to
date, evoking a Da Vinci-like study of whirling water or a neural network.
It is part of
a series of work based on dendrites’ branching structures such as trees, neurons,
industrial pipelines, or vascular networks. The Dendroids, as the series is called, began
in 1998 with installations studying the innate logic of trees.
Exquisitely crafted and
largely handwrought, Maelstrom is composed of thousands of variously sized,
cylindrical stainless-steel pipes and rods that have been welded together. More than
seven tons of material comprise the sculpture, which was hand-welded in the artist’s
upstate New York studio. Familiar themes are at play—artificiality and the natural
world, sly humor and irony, control and chaos, abstraction and figuration, and the
machine-made and the handmade—while conceptually complex concerns are addressed,
such as human desire to control nature and nature’s indifference to that desire. Visitors
are encouraged to move throughout the installation to experience its inherent drama
and turbulence.
Born in New York in 1966, Paine grew up in the suburbs of Northern Virginia.
He left
home at age 15, crisscrossing the United States, and studied art at the College of Santa
Fe, New Mexico (1985–86), and Pratt Institute, New York (1986–88). Since 1990, his
work has been exhibited internationally and is included in a wide spectrum of public
and private collections in the United States and abroad. He lives and works in Brooklyn,
Long Island City, and Treadwell, New York.
In conjunction with the installation, some education programs will be offered, including
gallery talks on May 28, June 16, July 7, and July 23.
The installation will also be
featured on the Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org.
Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom is organized by Anne L. Strauss, Associate Curator
of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art at The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, with organizational assistance by Taylor Miller,
Associate Building Manager for Exhibitions, and graphics by Barbara Weiss, Senior
Graphic Designer.
***
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden opened to the public in 1987. Roxy Paine
on the Roof: Maelstrom is the 12th consecutive single-artist installation for the Roof
Garden. The past 11 annual installations have featured large-scale works by
contemporary artists: Ellsworth Kelly (1998), Magdalena Abakanowicz (1999), David
Smith (2000), Joel Shapiro (2001), Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (2002),
Roy Lichtenstein (2003), Andy Goldsworthy (2004), Sol LeWitt (2005), Cai Guo-Qiang
(2006), Frank Stella (2007), and Jeff Koons (2008).
***
Sandwiches, snacks, desserts, and beverage service—including espresso, cappuccino,
iced tea, soft drinks, wine, and beer—will be available at the Roof Garden Café daily
from 10 a.m. until closing, as weather permits. A martini bar will also be
open on the Roof Garden on Friday and Saturday evenings (5:30–8 p.m.).

Hours
Fridays and Saturdays
9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays–Thursdays
9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building:
May 25, 2009
Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT
9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Suggested Admission
(includes Main Building and The Cloisters museum and gardens on the same day)
The
Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00
Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free
Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1-800-965-4827
information
535-7710;
For more information (212) 535-7710 www.metmuseum.org
No extra charge for any exhibition.