NEW YORK : STORM KING ART CENTER

 July 24, 2021

On our third day in New York, we picked up a car at JFK, thinking that would make it easy to turn it in when it was time to go back to California (oh, we were so wrong, but more on that later), and we got on the road to go "upstate." ("Upstate" refers to almost all of the geographical region of New York--everything but the metropolitan area of New York City.) It was a Saturday morning and traffic was fairly light, especially by NYC standards.

 We were amazed by how quickly we left the city behind. Within an hour, we were traveling on forest-lined highways with big breaks between cities.

Our first destination was Storm King Art Center (marked by the red ballooon), about 70 miles upstate from JFK Airport (marked by a red star).

Wow, if you haven't heard of this place (as I had not), pay attention and get yourself there on your next trip to New York. It is amazing! This outdoor art museum, containing perhaps the largest collection of contemporary outdoor sculptures in the United States, was founded in 1960 and covers 500 acres. We're not talking minor artists no one has heard of. The most prominent sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries are represented.

The Arch (1975) was created by Alexander Calder just one year before his death. There is an open arch you can walk through on the other side, but apparently I liked this view better! It is one of the first things we saw after driving into the grounds.

Frog Legs (2002) by Mark di Suvero is almost 27 feet tall and is planted on the top of a large hill. At first glance it evokes Christ on the cross at Calvary.

Well, these two were easy to see, but how does one get around to all 500 acres of the Center? A 3.5 loop trail passes by most of the art, but that is a long way to walk and we had other things planned for the day.

The solution? Rent a bike. It is worth whatever you have to pay.

The bikes are very nice and the roads are paved (with a few exceptions). There are hills, but there are also gears. Biking around the park was a blast.

It is partly because of Mark di Suvero (see Frog Legs, above) that the Storm King Art Center came into being. The Center chairman purchased five of his monumental works in 1975, greatly expanding the scope and size of the park. This is di Suvero's Figolu (2005-2011).

E=mc²  (1996-1997) by di Suvero looks like something from Roswell, New Mexico.

Of course, what makes the Storm King so magical is not just the art, but the setting. Pieces are spread far apart, and in between are acres of forest and grassland and flowers.

The three aluminum slabs that comprise Three Elements (1966-1967) by Ronald Bladen look like buildings about to topple.

Hmmm. Not sure what is going on in this picture, but someone looks pretty mighty.

Mother Nature is a pretty good sculptor too, don't you think?

From a distance, this looks like a bunch of rocks in the grass.

And close-up, it still looks like a bunch of rocks in the grass. However, it is indeed a work of art and is entitled a stone thinks of Enceladus. Created by Martha Tuttle, this display covers eight acres and includes 100 cast glass stones and 100 carved marble stones placed on top of natural boulders strewn about the field.

A sign onsite gives viewers food for thought with profound questions and comments like these:

• Do we empathize with a stone because it is mineral, like our bodies? Does a stone empathize with us?

• What does a stone think about? Does it find itself beautiful?

•  Rivers are difficult to know, because they erase their own history as they widen through time.

•  In her memoir The Turquoise Ledge, Leslie Marmon Silko describes putting her hand on a rattlesnake while gardening. Because the snake has learned over time that she is not a threat, he does not bite her.

• Maybe we should have rock stacking gardens.

(This is a temporary exhibit and has ended since our visit.)

Moving on. A functioning sailboat perched on a little island was painted by Roy Lichtenstein for an America's Cup race in 1994. It is called Mermaid. Can you see the mermaid painted on the side?

Perfect cycling conditions!

The name "Maya Lin" is familiar to many as the artist who created the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. Her artwork Storm King Wavefield (2007-2008) is a nice counterpoint to that work. Where the Vietnam Wall is dark, this field is light and full of life. The memorial's hard, sharp edges are the opposite of these soft, rolling hills. Lin selected eleven acres that had been a gravel pit and turned them into an environmental reclamation project. She designed seven nearly 400-foot-long ridges ranging in height from ten to fifteen feet to mimic the patterns of mid-ocean waves.

Have I mentioned how fun the cycling was?

Take a walk in the woods with these two and you will find things you wouldn't find on your own.

Parasitic ghostly Indian pipes (aka corpse plant), Emily Dickinson's favorite flower:

Rotting but somehow beautiful mushrooms:

An iridescent bug, more beautiful because someone else is holding it:

And a very interesting stone wall . . . 

. . . that snakes around trees . . . 

. . . and ends up reaching all the way to a pond, then emerging from the other side and continuing uphill to the Art Center's western boundary at the New York State Thruway. Built in 17 days by five men who used 250 tons of stones and no mortar, Storm King Wall (1997-1998) by Andy Goldsworthy is 2,278 feet long.

This one's a crowd pleaser. I had a hard time getting a photo without people posing in front of it. The eight-foot-tall head is actually the artist's self-portrait!

Three-legged Buddha (2007) by Zhang Huan

My mycologist has an amazing eye for mushrooms. There are so many varieties!

A mushroom fairy circle:

This made me think of the sod houses in the Little House on the Prairie books. It was inspired by a structure on the artist's family's property.

Low Building with Dirt Roof (For Mary) (1973/2010) by Alice Aycock

If you can believe it, the same artist who created the buried house above also created Three-Fold Manifestation II (1987). She describes it as "three bowls of whirling, skewed spaces that are tipped, so it's as though you're looking into disoriented worlds." 

We could have easily spent the entire day at the Storm King Art Center. There were many sculptures off in the distance that we didn't have time to see as we rode our bikes down the road. Even the way the grounds are groomed is part of the art experience and deserves more attention than we had time to give.

This sculpture is made of rubber tires and steel. It looks a lot like a steel-belted radial after a blowout.

A Moment in Time (2004) by Chakaia Booker

Sea Change (1996) by George Cutts is the only motorized sculpture at Storm King. Two curving pole srotate to create an undulating dance, moving together and apart. They seem to be bending and shape-shifting, but its an illusion. They are made of steel.

The information on site for the next sculpture was particularly interesting. "Gazebo for Two Anarchists is one of several works Siah Armanjani has dedicated to twentieth-century anarchists--in this case, brother and sister Alberto and Gabriella Antolini, the latter of whom was imprisoned for transportation of explosives in the Youngstown Affair in 1918. The open lattice . . . suggests a prison cell. Each gazebo encloses a large chair with armrests that recall thrones--or electric chairs. The artist, who is known for his politically resonant, interactive sculpture, transforms the gazebo, traditionally a picturesque garden folly, into a vehicle for political expression."

This is one of eighteen cactus sculptures by the artist, and I think it looks as much like a lobster as a cactus.

Architectural Cactus #6 (2006) by Dennis Oppenheim

If I had to pick a very favorite sculpture, this one might be it. It made me think of the multiple eyes of a spider.  No wonder, because the artist is Louise Bourgeois, the sculptor of the giant spiders I have seen in Tokyo, at the Palm Springs Art Museum, and at the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in Des Moines, Iowa.  The woman knows how to do creepy.

Eyes (2001) by Louise Bourgeois

Storm King Art Center is a must-see museum if you are in the NYC area, and renting bikes is a must-do. I think this is one of the most fun art experiences I have ever had.