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Crossing Brooklyn:
Angel in Crown Heights
Deborah Masters
January 6 - Feb 27, 2003
Lobby Gallery, Lobby Cases
Opening January 6, 2003, a new series of
works entitled "Crossing Brooklyn" will be exhibited at Brooklyn Public
Library’s Central Library on Grand Army Plaza. The series, free and open
to the public, will present new works by Brooklyn artists whose
innovative sculptures reflect enduring aspects of life in the borough.
Deborah Masters, known for such works as
her 28-panel "Walking New York" at JFK International Airport, "Sacred
Matter" at Smack Mellon Studios, "Circle" in the Whitney Museum of
American Art's "Urban Figures" show, and "Pond Virgins" created for
Brooklyn's Prospect Park, will open the series with a new installation
entitled "Angel in Crown Heights."
"Angel in Crown Heights" is a site-specific work of a larger-than-life
sculpture of Angel and three large black and white drawings overlaying
the three walls of the rectangular Lobby Gallery space. The figure is
based on Masters' assistant, Angel Mohammed. The sculpture of Angel,
seated on a box and drawing on his knee, is cast in Ultracal and painted
in earth tones with a dull finish. Angel sits within the context of the
three drawings of the Crown Heights neighborhood where he grew up. One
drawing, situated on the central wall of the gallery, depicts stairs
leading up to the front door of his brownstone, with adjacent drawings
featuring the buildings on either side.
The combination of the two mediums of sculpture and drawing create a
provocative juxtaposition of weight and textures in Masters’ work. Her
figures are massively stated, yet her themes frequently have to do with
our transit through this world, our environment, and our place in it.
Her work seems to suggest figures of ‘everyman,’ endowed with the
intrinsic weight of life, journeying through with the epic struggles
that face us all. There is nothing small or provincial about the way
Masters sees or renders humanity in her sculptures. Like the monumental
figures of Aristide Maillol or of classical Greek sculpture, the weight
of human experience is substance made live in Masters' work. The
cultures, textures, and imperfections of humanity as rendered in the
human figure are both representative and specific in her work. The
personal is the historic, and vice versa.
A separate exhibition of Masters' preliminary drawings for "Walking New
York" at JFK International Airport Project will be on view in the
second-floor balcony cases. The project used three New York artists for
a million-dollar public-private venture for art installations for the
opening of the new Terminal 4 at JFK International Airport in 2001. For
the project, Masters created 28 bold narrative reliefs, each 8.5 feet
high by 10 feet wide covering a 350-foot-wide span above the terminal’s
immigration booths. Sculpted murals with reliefs up to six inches deep
and 800 pounds each greet passengers with vibrant scenes of daily New
York life ranging from Coney Island, Wall Street, the Brooklyn and
Manhattan bridges, and subway rides to city parades. The scenes vividly
portray the rich and diverse cultural life of New York.
This exhibition is organized for
Brooklyn Public Library by Smack Mellon and curated by Marian Griffiths.
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