This past weekend, we joined our good friends for a relatively low-key birthday celebration that took place at the Storm King Art Center in Orange County, New York. It was a non-trivial schlep for us to get there – nearly two hours by car – but the weather was gorgeous, the company peerless, and the park most pleasant for a leisurely perambulation.
The name of the grounds comes from the nearby mountain, which in the 19th century was considered a sure foreteller of storms due to the common cloud patterns. Unlike, say, Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, which is more or less a garden seemingly purpose-built for artistic exhibition, the Storm King feels like a huge park to which sculptures are purely incidental. It claims to be the country’s largest open-air collection of contemporary sculpture, but that is probably so only due to its overall size. Walking around the park, you get the impression that the various art pieces are not so much exhibits as occasional ornamentation.
There are plenty of massive and frequently eye-catching pieces.
Here or there, the scale is less grandiose.
Possibly my favorite work in the park is this one, called Architectural Cactus.
Evocative or original names are in short supply among the exhibits. This group of spherical stones is called Stone Spheres.
This fountain is called North East South West, but I could not discern which of the four parts corresponded to which cardinal direction.
The mansion in the background is home to the gift shop and a few exhibition rooms. We took only a perfunctory look – being outside was significantly more pleasant than spending even a short time indoors.
In instances, the sculpture is meant to offer a bit of an optical illusion when viewed from a certain angle.
And one or two evoke different interpretations from varying perspectives, such as this mollusc shell…
… that may actually be a giant’s thumb…
… that turns into a sort of shelter upon close inspection.
The name of that piece is The Lookout, which sort of makes sense given its placement.
I am not a huge fan of contemporary art, but visiting the Storm King Art Center was a delightful way to spend a glorious September Sunday.
Спасибо, интересно!