Madison Square Park Conservancy Announces Alison Saar: Feallen and Fallow
NEW YORK, NY.- Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art announces Feallen and Fallow, a six-piece installation featuring four newly commissioned works by Los Angeles-based artist Alison Saar. Drawing inspiration from the cyclical qualities of life and nature, Saar’s Feallen and Fallow will take park-goer sand visitors on a journey through the four seasons as inspired by the ancient myth of Persephone in the urban oasis that is Madison Square Park. The series will premiere alongside two of the artist’s known Treesouls (1994), standing fourteen feet amidst the Park’s surrounding foliage. Feallen and Fallow is a commission of the award-winning Mad. Sq. Art program, and will remain on view daily from September 22 through December 31, 2011.
- Alison Saar, Treesouls (1994). Image courtesy of Denver Art Museum.
For the occasion of the Madison Square Park installation, the artist presents four larger than-life works cast in bronze featuring the seasons as embodied by the female form at different stages of maturation. Spring is depicted as an adolescent girl perched high upon an existing tree trunk. Her wild head of roots cascade downward to conceal her face as chrysalises in various stages of hatching are shown woven within her hair and covering her body as if lively, fluttering moths emerging from cocoons. Summer is depicted as a pregnant woman whose womb holds a swarm of fireflies, illuminated at the center of the bronze sculpture for all to see.
Fall is represented by a woman of the harvest with a head of branches extending upwards, barring no leaves but a smattering of pomegranates, some whole and others split. The woman holds her skirt in both hands catching the fallen fruit while others descend to the ground. Winter is shown by a curled stone-like figure, cast in bronze in which the seasons come to rest, only to start anew
once more.
Together the series tells of the Greek myth of Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Zeus, who embodied the earth’s fertility and whose tale gave rise to the establishment of seasons. Abducted by Hades and forced to live in the underworld, Demeter’s mourning of her lost daughter lead the earth to become barren. In turn, Zeus negotiated Persephone’s release on the condition no food would pass her lips though Persephone was eventually tricked by Hades into sharing pomegranate seeds. In consequence, Persephone was confined to living in the underworld for six months, and the earth for six, giving rise to the four seasons as we know them today. In addition to the new series, the artist presents two Treesouls (1994) to stand 14 feet high among the Park’s existing foliage. Comprised of found and sculpted wood with copper cladding, the pair depicts a coupled young man and woman whose legs dissolve into the earth as a web of searching roots.
Artist, Alison Saar, comments: “When I lived a few blocks from Madison Square Park I’d often stroll through and was always amazed by the transformation of the park throughout the year. Not only with the fall foliage and the barren winters, but also how the park itself would be bustling in the summer and nearly dormant in the winter. Feallan and Fallow depicts the seasons, but also speaks of our physical maturation and the ebb and flow of creativity.”
Related posts:
- Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art Premieres Newly Commissioned Film
- Kunstverein München Announces First Comprehensive Solo Show by Tobias Madison
- Artist Alison Elizabeth Taylor Returns for Third Exhibition at James Cohan Gallery
- Times Square Alliance Presents a Major Public art Exhibition at the Crossroads of the World
- Some Assembly Required at the Craft and Folk Art Museum
