Peter Woytuk on Broadway...
Peter Woytuk on Broadway, a major exhibition of bronze sculptures, will be exhibited on the Broadway Malls from Columbus Circle to 168th Street beginning on October 21, 2011, through April 2012.
The exhibition will open with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 11:00 AM at Verdi Square on Broadway between 72nd and 73rd Streets. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, artist Peter Woytuk, William Morrison of the Morrison Gallery and representatives of the Broadway Mall Association will all speak at the opening.
The ambitious exhibition is a collaboration by the Broadway Mall Association, the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, the New York City Department of Transportation and the Morrison Gallery of Kent, CT, Woytuk’s primary gallery.
Peter Woytuk on Broadway brings to the Broadway Malls the vigorous yet endearing sculptures that Woytuk is known for worldwide. This is the artist’s first outdoor exhibition in New York City.
The exhibition begins in Columbus Circle, the start of the Broadway Malls, with the monumental, life size “Elephant Pair”. A bronze Woytuk menagerie of sheep, ostriches, crows, hens and other fanciful sculptures continues at intervals along the Malls, concluding at Mitchell Square at 168th Street with three 2,500-pound seated “Bulls”.
Peter Woytuk (American, b. 1958) is recognized internationally for his sculptures of animals. Woytuk cleverly reduces their shapes to essential forms, allowing the power and elegance of his subjects to become both graceful and whimsical expressions of mass. Using a style that is at once descriptive and expressive, Woytuk also enjoys altering the scale of everyday objects such as tools or fruit, which in his hands are transformed into animated participants in the composition.
Woytuk works mainly in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia with several art foundries capable of melting up to 10,000 pounds of bronze into a single pour of his work, enabling him to create large pieces, many of which will be exhibited on Broadway.
2095 Broadway, Suite 403, New York, NY 10023
The display of Peter Woytuk’s captivating works will include a cell phone tour with interpretation by the artist and a bilingual text, funded by Con Edison.
The Broadway Mall Association (BMA) is a non-profit organization, working in partnership with community residents, businesses, other non-profit groups, and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation to beautify and maintain the malls of Broadway from 70th Street to 168th Street. The malls are a 5.5 mile-long park that provides a welcome green space from the Upper West Side through Harlem to Washington Heights. Residents and visitors enjoy plantings and public art installations, often from the perspective of the Broadway mall benches. Please see: www.broadwaymall.org.
Art on the Malls is the Broadway Mall Association’s program to enliven the Broadway Malls with contemporary art, launched in 2004 with the major exhibition Tom Otterness on Broadway. Since then, the Broadway Mall Association has exhibited many artists on the malls, including Boaz Vaadia, Carol Eisner and Manolo Valdés.
Parks & Recreation’s public art program has consistently fostered the creation and installation of temporary public art in parks throughout the five boroughs. Since 1967, collaborations with arts organizations and artists have produced hundreds of public art projects in New York City parks. For more information on the Art in the Parks Program visit: www.nyc.gov/parks/art.
The Morrison Gallery, under the direction of owner William Morrison, is located at 8 Old Barn Road in Kent, Connecticut, an important center of the Litchfield County art scene. Opened in 1999 the soaring, modern 7,000-square-foot gallery offers on-going exhibitions of sculpture, painting and other media in a pastoral, inviting setting in northwestern Connecticut. Please see: www.morrisongallery.com.
