On View: October 25, 2012 – February 1, 2013
Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art is thrilled to announce a new, upcoming monumental sculpture by distinguished artist Leo Villareal. Largely inspired by the work of Buckminster Fuller, Villareal’s BUCKYBALL will apply concepts of geometry and mathematical relationships within a towering 30-foot tall, illuminated sculpture. The site-specific work will remain on view daily from October 25, 2012 through February 1, 2013 in Madison Square Park.A commission of the Mad. Sq. Art program, Villareal’s BUCKYBALL will feature two nested, geodesic sculptural spheres comprised of 180 LED tubes arranged in a series of pentagons and hexagons, known as a “Fullerene,” referring to the form’s discovery by Buckminster Fuller. Individual pixels located every 1.2 inches along the tubes are each capable of displaying 16 million distinct colors and will be specifically tuned by the artist’s own software, creating a subtle and sophisticated palette to enliven the Park. Relying on LED technologies driven by chance, BUCKYBALL’s light sequences will create exuberant, random compositions of varied speed, color, opacity, and scale. BUCKYBALL will trigger neurological processes within the brain, calling on our natural impulse to identify patterns and gather meaning from our external environment.
Through basic elements such as pixels and binary codes, Villareal allows for a better understanding of the underlying structures and systems that govern everyday function. As he builds these simple elements into a full-scale sculptural installation that moves, changes, and interacts, this work ultimately grows into a complex, dynamic form that questions common notions of space, time, and sensorial pleasure.
Villareal’s light sculpture will be surrounded by zero-gravity couches that allow viewers to recline below the artwork. These couches are built out of wooden slats that mimic the construction method of adjacent park benches just as the pedestal on which BUCKYBALL rests emulates support structures found on the Park’s neighboring sculptural monuments.
Artist Leo Villareal states, “I am thrilled to be presenting BUCKYBALL in Madison Square Park. My new light sculpture takes the form of a Carbon 60 molecule and expands it to monumental scale. It also explores self-similarity through the use of two identical nested spheres, the outer at 20 feet in diameter and the inner at 10 feet. Lined with LED tubes, these structures are activated through sequenced light driven by custom software. This public artwork reinterprets many of the traditional elements found in the Park such as seating and historic monuments in a fresh and exciting way.”
Madison Square Park Conservancy President Debbie Landau comments, “Leo’s BUCKYBALL is apt for Madison Square Park’s unique landscape. It shares much in common with the shifting colors and light of the fall season. It will animate the park throughout the fall and winter with its ever-shifting light.”
About the Artist:
Villareal received a BA in sculpture from Yale University in 1990, and a graduate degree from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Recent exhibitions include a survey show organized by the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, which continues to tour several museums in the United States. He has completed many site-specific works including Radiant Pathway, Rice University, Houston, Texas; Mulitverse, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Diagonal Grid, Borusan Center for Culture and Arts, Istanbul, Turkey; Stars, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York; and the recently installed Hive, for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the Bleecker Lafayette Street subway station in Manhattan.
Among the projects Villareal is currently working on, Bay Lights for the Bay Bridge in San Francisco will spectacularly light the bridge and glisten throughout the city. Villareal is also a focal point of the James Corner Field Operations design team that will renew Chicago’s Navy Pier. He has also been commissioned for installations at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and The Durst Organization in New York City. Villareal’s work is in the permanent collections of prestigious museums including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Kagawa, Japan; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Leo Villareal is represented by Gering & López Gallery, New York.
About Mad. Sq. Art and Madison Square Park Conservancy:
Mad. Sq. Art is the free, contemporary art program of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.
Since 2004, Mad. Sq. Art has commissioned and presented more than twenty premier installations in Madison Square Park by acclaimed artists ranging in practice and media. Mad. Sq. Art has exhibited works by artists including Bill Beirne, Jim Campbell, Richard Deacon, Mark di Suvero, Bill Fontana, Ernie Gehr, Antony Gormley, Jene Highstein, Tadashi Kawamata, Mel Kendrick, Sol LeWitt, Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Charles Long, Jacco Olivier, Roxy Paine, Jaume Plensa, Shannon Plumb, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Alison Saar, Jessica Stockholder, and William Wegman, among others.
Major support for Mad. Sq. Art is provided by Liane Ginsberg, Agnes Gund, Toby Devan Lewis, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Tiffany & Co., the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Sorgente Group, and Anonymous. Substantial support is provided by Martha and Bruce Atwater, Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, the Henry Luce Foundation, Ronald A. Pizzuti, The Rudin Family, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, Tishman Speyer, the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust, and The Sol LeWitt Fund for Artist Work. Additional support is provided by Tom Berger, Danny and Audrey Meyer, Jamie Welch and Fiona Angelini, Leslie and Howard Zemsky, NYC and Company, and Time Out New York.
Major exhibition support for BUCKYBALL is provided by Bloomberg. Delta Air Lines is the Official Airline Sponsor of Mad. Sq. Art. Ace Hotel New York is the Official Hotel Partner of the Madison Square Park Conservancy. Mad. Sq. Art is supported in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. The Madison Square Park Conservancy is a public/private partnership with New York City Parks & Recreation.
Rendering of BUCKYBALL courtesy of Leo Villareal.
MEDIA CONTACT:
FITZ & CO, Concetta Duncan, Tel: 212-627-1455 x232, E: concetta@fitzandco.com
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Greensboro choreographer Duane Cyrus has performed across the country and around the world with The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Martha Graham Dance Company and the original London cast of The Lion King, among others. His creative process involves taking a theatrical approach to performance, collaborating with artists from different disciplines, and paying attention to production values that contribute to, re-shape and re-position live movement and theatrical performance for the audience. Cyrus choreographed Coco Tries New Things for TONY Award nominee Karine Plantadit in 2011, and his Cyrus Art Productions was co-producer of Stars of American Dance at Carolina Theatre in Greensboro in 2011. He received an M.F.A in Dance from the University of Illinois.
Durham narrative filmmaker Notasia DeRubertis explores social issues in character-driven stories. She was motivated to make her first feature-length film based on one of her screenplays. In the process, she learned and fell in love with all aspects of filmmaking. In the film, she made her first stop-motion animation, piecing together four-thousand frames of her drawings for two minutes of film. A recipient of the 2012 Ella Pratt Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council for stop-motion animation, DeRubertis currently is shooting a stop-motion-animated short and is in pre-production on her second feature. She was a painting major at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Cary visual artist Travis Donovan uses smoke machines, pumps and motors to coax new poetic connections from common materials and objects he’s encountered growing up in the South. In Smoulder, whisps of smoke emanate from a heap of tobacco leaves, while in Drip, clay slowly drips down the sides of walls and pools on the floor. Donovan’s works will be exhibited as part of Home Work: Domestic Narratives in Contemporary Art at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art, Greensboro, opening in September, 2012; have been seen at the Ruffin Gallery, University of Virginia, Charlottesville in 2011; and the Industry Gallery, Washington D.C. in 2011. He holds an M.F.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Raleigh visual artist Scott Hazard’s photographic and text-based works consist of layers of paper that are carefully torn or cut, spaced apart and aligned to define a sculptural void. The three-dimensionality of his works makes viewing them a tactile experience, and the placement of words in his text-based pieces give viewers the perception of moving in, through and out of the compositions. His work was exhibited in the 2012 solo show Cultivations at the Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, Va. and the 2011 solo exhibition, Departures at the Smoyer Gallery, Roanoke College, Salem, Va. Hazard holds an M.F.A in sculpture from the University of Florida. 
Greensboro visual artist Brandon Jones designs and builds objects that blur the line between functional furniture and sculpture. His most recent work is a series of furniture studies created by digitally analyzing and manipulating forms which were then built with a variety of metals, woods, repurposed objects and innovative green materials. Rather than being boxed in by the limitations of materials, Jones finds inspiration in exploring their unconventional uses. He was the recipient of the 2010 Miriam Scott Mayo & Hazeleene Tate Scott Scholarship from UNC Greensboro, and was profiled in IDEC Exchange: a Forum for Interior Design Education, summer 2012. Jones holds an M.S. in Interior Architecture from UNC Greensboro. 
Asheville artist Mark Koven creates elaborate multimedia installations using visual arts, sound and performance that encourage viewers to become active participants, transcending the separation between installation/performance and viewer/audience. In Projected Growth, Koven swabbed a well-read Wall St. Journal newspaper taken from a coffeehouse and grew the bacteria in a petri dish, comparing the growth of the bacteria with the growth of the projected financial index. In Flock of Sheep, water-filled crates mimicking those in the book The Little Prince were hung from the ceiling, and as viewers approached the boxes emanated water vapor “clouds.” Koven was the winner of the 2007 international competition for Art in Public Places as part of the Lights on Tampa initiative, Fla. and received a 2005 Scope Performance Grant, London, UK. He earned an M.F.A from the University of Miami.
For Clyde ceramists Becky and Steve Lloyd, decoration and form are two principles that guide their exploration of the vessel as an icon of containment, celebration ritual and contemplation. Their use of materials reflects their reverence for the traditions of ceramic vessel, while thrown form and surface design come together as the pair explores how to merge these elements into objects of precision and pure beauty. The Lloyds were selected to exhibit at the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington, D.C. in 2009 and 2011; earned Best of Show awards at Artisphere in Greenville, S.C. in 2012; the St. Louis Art Fair in 2009; and Madison Art Fair on the Square in 2006. Becky received her B.A. from Beloit College and Steve earned an M.F.A from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
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Charlotte visual artist Marek Ranis’ work examines large social and political events, ecological issues and geographical and political boundaries from a larger cultural and historical perspective. Ranis’ work invites viewers to contemplate our times, which some describe as a period of weltschmerz (world sorrow) and provides inspiration for a hopeful future. Ranis’ site-specific video installation, Hold On was displayed at the Maskara Gallery, Mumbai, India and his work was part of the 2011 SESC – VideoBrasil International Contemporary Art Festival in Sao Paulo. He holds an M.F.A. in Sculpture /Studio Art from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland. 
Garner visual artist Dana Raymond imaginatively merges the rational and irrational into static and dynamic objects, installations and performances. His main objective is to activate space and to explore the relationship between parts and the whole. Raymond participated in a 1982 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture summer artist residency that included Frank Stella, Louise Nevelson and David Hockney; was part of the collective installation Qatari Bottlescape at VCU-Qatar College of Design Arts in Doha in 2002; and his kinetic installation, Breathing Will: Okinawa was on display at the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, Japan in 2003. He holds an M.F.A in sculpture from Queens College, City University of New York.
Chapel Hill visual artist Amanda Small uses traditional craft materials such as porcelain, fiber, and resin, conceiving and presenting work that contradicts the accepted conventions of her chosen material. Delicate layers arranged in undulating patterns reference internal structures found in nature, biology, and plant life, symbolizing vast micro-macro landscapes. Small’s 2012 exhibitions include Some(Where) We Meet/Antipodes at the Pool Art Center Gallery, Drury University, Springfield, Mo.; and Small Favors at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia. She received the 2011 grand prize for Specific Environments: Landscape as Metaphor at Colorado Lincoln Center, Ft. Collins, Colo. Small earned an M.F.A in Ceramic Art from Kansas State University.
Greensboro visual artist Tracy Spencer-Stonestreet is inspired by the layers of meaning, signals, and desires that all exist within the home, using her own experience of growing up in a “big, loving Southern family” as the catalyst for much of her work. Her manipulations of furniture and other domestic objects — she claws, shoots and scratches, and well as fixes, improves and elevates common recognizable elements of the home — shift our relationships to these objects as well as to each other. Spencer-Stonestreet received the 2011 Logan Award from UNC-Chapel Hill, and her work has been selected for Home Work: Domestic Narratives in Contemporary Art at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art, Greensboro, opening in Sept. 2012. She received an M.F.A in Studio Art from UNC-Chapel Hill. 
Carrboro visual artist Leigh Suggs’ works emerge from repeated shapes and lines, most often circles, dots, or lines that create the idea of a circle. Her “process” is to focus on a single gesture, whether it is cutting, stitching, or marking; these rhythmic and laborious gestures accumulate, and the pattern-making begins. Suggs was a 2011 winter printmaking resident artist at Penland School of Crafts, and her work was exhibited in a solo show entitled Red White Black Blue 2012 at Light Art + Design in Chapel Hill. She holds a B.F.A, with a concentration in mixed media and fibers from UNC-Chapel Hill. 
Raleigh visual artist Sarah West’s work resides at the intersection of jewelry and sculpture. Working from abstract drawings and collages to create diagrams of emotional landscapes, she exposes the underlying geography of memory and history through overlapping line, shadow and imagery. She is inspired by the open latticework of bridges and electric towers, and the internal architecture of buildings, maps and trajectory patterns. In 2012, West’s work was on view in Public Record, a solo exhibition at Artspace, Raleigh and in the Penland Artists Summer Show and Illume, both invitational shows at Light Art and Design in Chapel Hill. She earned a B.F.A. from East Carolina University, Greenville.
Jeff Whetstone’s work portrays the wild in us as much as it does the wild around us. Whether the locale is a dramatic western landscape or temporary woods between subdivisions, the wilderness he depicts is both a state of the contemporary environment and an internal identity. Whetstone portrays how notions of the wilderness shape our culture, and how our culture, in turn, forges the idea of the wild. He received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007 and the Factor Prize for Southern Art in 2008. His solo exhibitions include Seducing Birds, Snakes, Men at Julie Saul Gallery in New York City in 2011 and Jeff Whetstone, Post-Pleistocene at the Center for the Study of the American South, Chapel Hill in 2010. He holds an M.F.A. in Photography from Yale University. 
Durham dancer/choreographer Andrea E. Woods’ creative choreographic process is inspired by folk traditions such as blues, jazz, folk music, African American literature, family folklore and movement reflective of the social and cultural experience of the African Diaspora. She works with live and original text and music whenever possible, creating dances that have a generous worldview while centralizing, affirming, and exemplifying a positive reflection of African American culture. Woods has toured nationally and internationally with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co., serves as the Artistic Director of SOULOWORKS and is an assistant professor of the practice of dance at Duke University. She holds an M.F.A. in dance from Ohio State University.
