Olav Westphalen - Sculpture for all Sites

New York, August 2000 - Olav Westphalen describes his latest sculpture, Extremely Site-Unspecific Sculpture (E.S.U.S.) as, "an artwork which functions equally well at almost any imaginable site at any time." Resembling a cross between a high-tech U.F.O, a Weber grill and a child's toy, E.S.U.S. is comprised of several flexible components: tripod legs that can be lengthened or shortened according to the surface it sits on, a bright red fiberglass body that doubles as a floatation device, and a solar powered lighting system. Utilizing the adaptability and portability of Westphalen's cartoonish E.S.U.S., the piece will be seen at various locations throughout New York City including the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, Tompkins Square Park and Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Falling somewhere in-between the extremes of installation artworks that are a direct response to their given site, and so-called "plop art", autonomous sculptures that assert their presence and identity in spite of their context, E.S.U.S. functions in any environment, effectively defying context, while successfully adapting to its surroundings. E.S.U.S. is essentially an aesthetic and technical solution to an intellectual question: what would a sculpture look like that was neither high modernist nor site-specific.

For the travelling exhibition of E.S.U.S. Westphalen has chosen archetypal sites for public sculpture: city parks, corporate atriums and museum locations. On September 22nd E.S.U.S. will debut at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris. For three days the piece will interact with this corporate atrium/contemporary art space before moving downtown on September 25th. At Tompkins Square Park, E.S.U.S. will be set against the bucolic setting of this recently restored urban parkland until September 26th. And finally, the project will move to the site of the 1964 World's Fair at Flushing Meadows Corona Park, where, sitting at the foot of the famous Unisphere, it will be on view from September 27th through October 27th. Becoming part of the scenery at Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Westphalen's work draws connections to World's Fair exhibits, visions of the future, and science fiction, while also referencing the function and capabilities of contemporary art within the public sphere.

A widely distributed brochure of E.S.U.S.'s travels will also be available, depicting Westphalen's creation in a variety of situations, communicating both the conceptual scope of the project and the physical versatility of this adaptable artwork.

Olav Westphalen was commissioned by the Public Art Fund through its In the Public Realm program for emerging artists. His artistic practice is as incisive as it is humorous, and he is perhaps best known for his comedy routine performance entitled Bruhaha. His work has been exhibited internationally at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, Chocolate Factory, Sweden, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, Apex Art, New York, and Four Walls, San Francisco, among others. Pressetext

Olav Westphalen - Sculpture for all Sites
22.09. - 24.09.2000 Whitney Museum of American Art / Philip Morris
25.09. - 26.09.2000 Tompkins Square Park
27.09. - 27.10.2000 Flushing Meadows Corona Park