With its 500 acres of forest, hills, farmed fields, wetlands and meadows, Storm King Art Center in Hudson Valley in New York is a sculpture park writ large. There’s no gentle pastoralism to be detected in its latest show, however. ‘Arlene Shechet: Girl Group’ features big, bold works in welded and brightly painted metal (until 10 November). These outdoor pieces reimagine Shechet’s ceramic series Together at a monumental scale. Their antecedents are on display indoors: abstract ceramic sculpture in cheerful hues designed to act as ‘colour therapy’, as the artist has described it, while she was working on the series during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Each work is titled after a time of day to mark the moment in which it was made, while the names of the works outdoors – such as Rapunzel (2024) and Maiden May (2023) – convey femininity, in counterpoint to the historically masculine associations of large-scale metal sculpture.
Find out more from Storm King Art Center’s website.
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Installation view of Bea Blue (2024) by Arlene Shechet at Storm King Art Center. Photo: David Schulze; © the artist
Installation view of As April (2024) by Arlene Shechet at Storm King Art Center. Photo: David Schulze; © the artist
Installation view of Dawn (2024) by Arlene Shechet at Storm King Art Center. Photo: David Schulze; © the artist