A glass footbridge being built at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019. It features lines showing the old historic paths of the Mississippi River. Project Site Superintendent Frank Milazzo and Margaux Krane, NOMA communications manager, take a look at the bridge where a temporary light-blue plastic sheet covers it during the construction period.
A few sculptures are already in place on the new additional grounds at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019. This bronze piece by Tony Cragg is entitled, "Sinbad 2000."
Description:One of the most prominent British sculptors working today, Tony Cragg is known for his large-scale assemblages composed of found objects or discarded materials, as well as his carved or cast pieces that assume biomorphic, sometimes whimsical forms. Runner derives its name from the sense of dynamic movement with which Cragg imbued his piece; while it appears, at first glance, highly abstract in its zig-zagging geometry, closer inspection reveals the outlines or traces of shapes that could resemble faces, limbs or knees—the form of a runner distorted through elongation and material manipulation.
Description:Johan Creten is a Flemish sculptor born in Belgium who lives and works in Paris. Massu II calls forth iconic forms from tree trunks to religious totems and architectural columns to reflect on the relationship between man and his environment.
Description:Born in Essen, West Germany in 1956, Katharina Fritsch is a contemporary German artist who is widely recognized for her larger-than-life sculptures of everyday household items, animals and religious or cultural icons.Skullis one of several variations on the form of the human skull in Fritsch’s sculptural portfolio. Mortality has been a common concern across Fritsch’s practice, as she renders not only skulls but also skeletal hands and feet as well as urns, votive figures and effigies.
Medium: Bronze with black patina and bronze with white paint
Description:Fred Wilson rose to prominence in the 1980s for his work examining the politics of museum display.The Mete of the Musecomes from a new body of work that Wilson began in the early 2000s. In the collection of large-scale sculptures, painting, installations and performances, Wilson draws out many of the issues that he considered in his museum interventions, focusing on the varied histories of the African diaspora and the lingering legacy of colonialism and slavery for people of African descent, both in the United States and internationally.
Description:Widely acknowledged as one of the most important Spanish sculptors of the 20th century, Balthasar Lobo was best known for his dynamic representations of the female form, and especially his depictions of mother and child. Posthumously cast just after Lobo’s death,Grande jeune fille a genouxepitomizes Lobo’s interest in the figure as well as the modernist impulses that guided his entire career.
Description:German artist Georg Herold’s work spans sculpture, painting and video to create works that use wit, irony and humor to comment on contemporary culture and society. InLiver of Love, the almost crude candy-colored, stick-figure rendering of the artist’s monumental bronze sculptures contrast sharply with the visceral, animated nature of their poses.
Description:One of the most prominent figures in American modernism, Frank Stella is known for his conceptually-driven paintings and sculptures that emphasize process over narrative. Throughout his career, Stella has mainly been interested in basic geometric forms such as rectangles, lines and triangles. Alu Truss Star is forged from milled aluminum with a shining metallic surface. In spite of its grandeur, the piece is eloquent and ethereal in appearance.
Title: Speed of Grace, from Men in the Cities series
Artist: Robert Longo
Medium: Cast bronze
Description:Robert Longo is one of the most significant artists of the “Pictures Generation”—a loose cohort of postmodernists working in the 1970s and 1980s who interrogated the role of media, advertising, television and print culture on American society in the postwar era. Longo began his acclaimed series“Men in the Cities”in 1979, which comprises large-scale charcoal drawings that capture suited businessmen and women in dynamic motion, appearing carefree and uninhibited. However, it is less widely known that Longo also produced sculptural works as part of this series, rendering the iconic dancing and leaping bodies in life-size, cast bronze works.
A glass footbridge being built at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019. It features lines showing the old historic paths of the Mississippi River. Project Site Superintendent Frank Milazzo and Margaux Krane, NOMA communications manager, take a look at the bridge where a temporary light-blue plastic sheet covers it during the construction period.
The new addition to the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden is just on the other side of the original garden behind the New Orleans Museum of Art, center, in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019.
A wide grassy seating area, top center, for the outdoor theater at the new addition being built at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in City Park in New Orleans on Friday, February 8, 2019.
A glass footbridge being built at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019. It features lines showing the old historic paths of the Mississippi River. Project Site Superintendent Frank Milazzo and Margaux Krane, NOMA communications manager, take a look at the bridge where a temporary light-blue plastic sheet covers it during the construction period.
A few sculptures are already in place on the new additional grounds at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019. This bronze piece by Tony Cragg is entitled, "Sinbad 2000."
Description:One of the most prominent British sculptors working today, Tony Cragg is known for his large-scale assemblages composed of found objects or discarded materials, as well as his carved or cast pieces that assume biomorphic, sometimes whimsical forms. Runner derives its name from the sense of dynamic movement with which Cragg imbued his piece; while it appears, at first glance, highly abstract in its zig-zagging geometry, closer inspection reveals the outlines or traces of shapes that could resemble faces, limbs or knees—the form of a runner distorted through elongation and material manipulation.
Hand Out Photo courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery
Title: Massu II
Artist: Creten, Johan
Medium:Bronze, lost-wax casting, bronze pedestal
Description:Johan Creten is a Flemish sculptor born in Belgium who lives and works in Paris. Massu II calls forth iconic forms from tree trunks to religious totems and architectural columns to reflect on the relationship between man and his environment.
Hand Out Photo S. Boonchai
Title: SchŠdel / Skull
Artist: Katharina Fritsch
Medium: Bronze, paint
Description:Born in Essen, West Germany in 1956, Katharina Fritsch is a contemporary German artist who is widely recognized for her larger-than-life sculptures of everyday household items, animals and religious or cultural icons.Skullis one of several variations on the form of the human skull in Fritsch’s sculptural portfolio. Mortality has been a common concern across Fritsch’s practice, as she renders not only skulls but also skeletal hands and feet as well as urns, votive figures and effigies.
Hand Out Photo courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery
Title: The Mete of the Muse
Artist: Wilson, Fred (American, b. 1954)
Medium: Bronze with black patina and bronze with white paint
Description:Fred Wilson rose to prominence in the 1980s for his work examining the politics of museum display.The Mete of the Musecomes from a new body of work that Wilson began in the early 2000s. In the collection of large-scale sculptures, painting, installations and performances, Wilson draws out many of the issues that he considered in his museum interventions, focusing on the varied histories of the African diaspora and the lingering legacy of colonialism and slavery for people of African descent, both in the United States and internationally.
Hand Out Photo courtesy Pace Gallery
Title: Grande jeune fille a genoux
Artist: Baltasar Lobo (Spanish, 1910-1993)
Medium: Bronze with brown patina
Description:Widely acknowledged as one of the most important Spanish sculptors of the 20th century, Balthasar Lobo was best known for his dynamic representations of the female form, and especially his depictions of mother and child. Posthumously cast just after Lobo’s death,Grande jeune fille a genouxepitomizes Lobo’s interest in the figure as well as the modernist impulses that guided his entire career.
PROVIDED PHOTO courtesy of Christie's
Title: Liver of Love
Artist: Georg Herold (German, born 1947)
Medium: Lacquered Bronze
Description:German artist Georg Herold’s work spans sculpture, painting and video to create works that use wit, irony and humor to comment on contemporary culture and society. InLiver of Love, the almost crude candy-colored, stick-figure rendering of the artist’s monumental bronze sculptures contrast sharply with the visceral, animated nature of their poses.
Hand Out Photo Federico Possati
Title: Alu Truss Star
Artist: Frank Stella
Medium: Milled aluminum
Description:One of the most prominent figures in American modernism, Frank Stella is known for his conceptually-driven paintings and sculptures that emphasize process over narrative. Throughout his career, Stella has mainly been interested in basic geometric forms such as rectangles, lines and triangles. Alu Truss Star is forged from milled aluminum with a shining metallic surface. In spite of its grandeur, the piece is eloquent and ethereal in appearance.
PROVIDED PHOTO Jason Wyche
Title: Speed of Grace, from Men in the Cities series
Artist: Robert Longo
Medium: Cast bronze
Description:Robert Longo is one of the most significant artists of the “Pictures Generation”—a loose cohort of postmodernists working in the 1970s and 1980s who interrogated the role of media, advertising, television and print culture on American society in the postwar era. Longo began his acclaimed series“Men in the Cities”in 1979, which comprises large-scale charcoal drawings that capture suited businessmen and women in dynamic motion, appearing carefree and uninhibited. However, it is less widely known that Longo also produced sculptural works as part of this series, rendering the iconic dancing and leaping bodies in life-size, cast bronze works.
Hand Out Photo courtesy of Christie's
Title: Wind Sculpture V Artist: Yinka Shonibare, MBE (English, born 1962) Medium: Steel armature and cast fiberglass resin
A glass footbridge being built at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019. It features lines showing the old historic paths of the Mississippi River. Project Site Superintendent Frank Milazzo and Margaux Krane, NOMA communications manager, take a look at the bridge where a temporary light-blue plastic sheet covers it during the construction period.
The new addition to the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden is just on the other side of the original garden behind the New Orleans Museum of Art, center, in New Orleans City Park on Friday, February 8, 2019.
A wide grassy seating area, top center, for the outdoor theater at the new addition being built at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in City Park in New Orleans on Friday, February 8, 2019.
When the expanded Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden opens May 15, it will do more than just double the footprint of the existing garden behind the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park.
The addition of 26 sculptures to the 64 already on display will help expand the artistic scope of the popular outdoor attraction into the 21st century.
The original 5-acre garden, which opened in 2003, will be connected to a new 6.5-acre space, which will include two commissioned pieces.
A glass bridge created by Elyn Zimmerman has an embedded pattern inspired by mid-century maps by cartographer Harold Fisk that showed how the Mississippi River and its tributaries have shifted course over the centuries.
The second commissioned work is a 60-foot mosaic wall by artist Teresita Fernández that will line the expansion’s main courtyard.
While the original sculpture garden features pieces primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries, NOMA Director Susan Taylor said donors Sydney and Walda Besthoff wanted to focus on contemporary pieces as they and NOMA began planning the space more than four years ago.
She said the Besthoffs scoured galleries and studios to find emerging artists, established artists working in new ways and pieces that exemplified a particular artist’s most significant works.
Their desire, she said, was “to make an outdoor experience that would be approachable, understandable and engaging.”
“We would not have done this without them,” she said of the expansion, which broke ground in December 2017.
Description:One of the most prominent British sculptors working today, Tony Cragg is known for his large-scale assemblages composed of found objects or discarded materials, as well as his carved or cast pieces that assume biomorphic, sometimes whimsical forms. Runner derives its name from the sense of dynamic movement with which Cragg imbued his piece; while it appears, at first glance, highly abstract in its zig-zagging geometry, closer inspection reveals the outlines or traces of shapes that could resemble faces, limbs or knees—the form of a runner distorted through elongation and material manipulation.
Description:Johan Creten is a Flemish sculptor born in Belgium who lives and works in Paris. Massu II calls forth iconic forms from tree trunks to religious totems and architectural columns to reflect on the relationship between man and his environment.
Description:Born in Essen, West Germany in 1956, Katharina Fritsch is a contemporary German artist who is widely recognized for her larger-than-life sculptures of everyday household items, animals and religious or cultural icons.Skullis one of several variations on the form of the human skull in Fritsch’s sculptural portfolio. Mortality has been a common concern across Fritsch’s practice, as she renders not only skulls but also skeletal hands and feet as well as urns, votive figures and effigies.
Medium: Bronze with black patina and bronze with white paint
Description:Fred Wilson rose to prominence in the 1980s for his work examining the politics of museum display.The Mete of the Musecomes from a new body of work that Wilson began in the early 2000s. In the collection of large-scale sculptures, painting, installations and performances, Wilson draws out many of the issues that he considered in his museum interventions, focusing on the varied histories of the African diaspora and the lingering legacy of colonialism and slavery for people of African descent, both in the United States and internationally.
Description:Widely acknowledged as one of the most important Spanish sculptors of the 20th century, Balthasar Lobo was best known for his dynamic representations of the female form, and especially his depictions of mother and child. Posthumously cast just after Lobo’s death,Grande jeune fille a genouxepitomizes Lobo’s interest in the figure as well as the modernist impulses that guided his entire career.
Description:German artist Georg Herold’s work spans sculpture, painting and video to create works that use wit, irony and humor to comment on contemporary culture and society. InLiver of Love, the almost crude candy-colored, stick-figure rendering of the artist’s monumental bronze sculptures contrast sharply with the visceral, animated nature of their poses.
Description:One of the most prominent figures in American modernism, Frank Stella is known for his conceptually-driven paintings and sculptures that emphasize process over narrative. Throughout his career, Stella has mainly been interested in basic geometric forms such as rectangles, lines and triangles. Alu Truss Star is forged from milled aluminum with a shining metallic surface. In spite of its grandeur, the piece is eloquent and ethereal in appearance.
Title: Speed of Grace, from Men in the Cities series
Artist: Robert Longo
Medium: Cast bronze
Description:Robert Longo is one of the most significant artists of the “Pictures Generation”—a loose cohort of postmodernists working in the 1970s and 1980s who interrogated the role of media, advertising, television and print culture on American society in the postwar era. Longo began his acclaimed series“Men in the Cities”in 1979, which comprises large-scale charcoal drawings that capture suited businessmen and women in dynamic motion, appearing carefree and uninhibited. However, it is less widely known that Longo also produced sculptural works as part of this series, rendering the iconic dancing and leaping bodies in life-size, cast bronze works.
NOMA is not saying how much the sculptures for the expansion cost.
Taylor said highlights of the expansion include works by Frank Stella, Tony Cragg and Ursula Van Rydingsvard.
Another unique aspect of the expansion is that most of it was designed after the pieces were identified, allowing the landscape architects and engineers to create the surrounding context with particular sculptures in mind, Taylor said.
“We worked very closely with the landscape architects to find the right place for certain works, and they would design the landscape accordingly,” she said.
The new space also includes a walkway that cuts through the lagoon almost flush with the surface of the water, passing under Roosevelt Mall, as visitors wind their way through the exhibit.
Taylor said NOMA’s other major goal with the expansion was to broaden the garden’s appeal and find new ways to engage the public, which it did with a new amphitheater and sculpture pavilion.
The amphitheater will open the space for music, film, dance and theater programs, while the pavilion will allow NOMA to bring to a larger audience some indoor pieces that would otherwise be available only inside the museum to members and paying visitors.
Editor's note: This story was changed on Feb. 9 to correct an error in which the glass bridge was said to connect the expansion with the original sculpture garden.
