Storm King Art Center
Thursday, 10th July 2008 by Alex Turnbull
Dotting the landscape here in Mountainville, New York, is a collection of bizarre shapes and interesting shadows. This is actually a huge outdoor sculpture garden called the Storm King Art Center.
Founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden as a gallery for Hudson River School painters, today the 202 hectares (500 acres) of landscaped lawns, fields and woodlands are home to hundreds of sculptures.
New York resident sculptor Mark di Suvero has several pieces here, such as Mozart's Birthday and Mother Peace (more info and pictures are available at the Storm King site).
Mother Peace, 1970
Di Suvero was in construction as a young man, but after a serious accident started using an arc welder to create large outdoor sculptures incorporating scrap metal and structural steel - like the enormous Pyramidian (this photo at Flickr gives a good sense of scale).
Pyramidian, 1970
Internationally renowned Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz created the seemingly accurately titled "Sarcophagi in Glass Houses" that we can see here (more info and ground-level pic).
Sarcophagi in Glass Houses, 1989
Another American, David von Schlegell, is responsible for several pieces on permanent display here titled "Untitled", including this one, "Untitled" (ground level picture).
Unititled, 1969
Not wanting to be left out, the UK is represented by the brilliant Andy Goldsworthy, whose 694 metre (2,278 foot) long Storm King Wall can be seen falling into the lake, and emerging from the other side to take a meandering path through the trees (more info and ground-level photo).
Storm King Wall, 1998
There are many other recognisable artworks dotted about the grounds, including Adam by Alexander Liberman and Free Ride Home by Kenneth Snelson, as well as others that I haven't been able to find any information about, like this large boat-like thing perched on a small island, or this mish-mash of what looks like huge red tubes.
The Wikipedia page on Storm King is short but to-the-point, whilst the official site would have to try very hard to be any more rambling and wordy. There's a Flickr Pool with some good images too.
Thanks to Ryan, Wayne Citrin and Adrian Likins.
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Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
I love the work of Andy Goldsworthy! Is more of his work visible on google maps?
The boat is a 1995 America’s Cup boat nicknamed the Mermaid from the American syndicate PACT95. The illustration on hull is of giant mermaid (hence the nickname)it is one of if the not thee last pieces of art designed by Roy Lichtenstein. Controversailly Dennis Connor rented the boat for $100,000 a day to defend the Cup unsuccesfully against the Kiwis.
Hmmm … no artwork visible in birdseye view: http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=qx2w6k8tv10p&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=21793868&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1
@1 Romanov: The entrance plaza at the De Young Museum in San Francisco contains a nifty Goldsworthy piece. The entrance plaza is visible on Google Earth/Maps, but the resolution of the imagery isn’t high enough to see the work, which is a meandering crack through the pavement and various stones on the plaza. There are some good photos here: http://sfciviccenter.blogspot.com/2006/02/de-young-museum-1-earthquake-crack.html