Community Corner

5 New Artist Installations Coming To Brooklyn Academy Of Music

Two light installations by Leo Villareal, a sculpture on the gallery terrace and two other new projects will soon be featured at the venue.

Teresita Fernandez's work Paradise Parados will be featured on the terrace above the Rudin Family Gallery at BAM.
Teresita Fernandez's work Paradise Parados will be featured on the terrace above the Rudin Family Gallery at BAM. (BAM)

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — Five new large-scale art installations will soon appear on various parts of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's campus in Fort Greene, the organization announced this week.

A $3.3 million art initiative funded by BAM and the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust will commission two new artists to create pieces at the venue and bring Leo Villarreal, who has an existing exhibit at BAM, in to create two new pieces. The organization also said that a fifth work will be coming soon by an artist that has not yet been chosen.

The works will be added to the outdoor terrace on top of BAM's Rudin Family Gallery, the rear wall of the Peter Jay Sharp Building, the third-story window of the BAM Fisher theater and inside a new space, called the BAM Karen, at 300 Ashland Pl.— all within the next two years. Villareal's existing piece, Stars, will stay in the windows of the Peter Jay Sharp Building and become part of the initiative.

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“This is a dynamic period for BAM in the visual arts, including the addition of our first dedicated exhibition space, The Rudin Family Gallery," BAM President Katy Clark said. "Commissioning public art by three artists forging exciting new paths underscores our commitment to the visual arts and celebrates the breadth of our organization."

Here's a look at the new pieces and the award-winning artists who will create them:

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(Provided by BAM)

Teresita Fernandez: Paradise Parados

Fernandez, who lives in Brooklyn and is originally from Miami, F.L., will create this sculptural form on the outdoor terrace on top of the Rudin Family Gallery.

Paradise Parados is designed to reflect the changing light of the day and seasons, passersby, street activity, and the urban surroundings. The work’s title is a play on the words “paradise” (which originally meant “walled or enclosed garden”) and “parados” (a term used in Ancient Greek theater meaning “side entrance” or “entrance from the wings of the stage”).

Fernandez's work has shown all over United States and internationally, including in New Orleans, at Harvard University, in Japan and, her largest public art project to date, in Madison Square Park. She was the first Latina to serve the US Commission of Fine Arts, to which she was appointed by President Barack Obama.

(Provided by BAM)

Leo Villareal: Light Matrix, Volume

Villareal's LED sculpture, Light Matrix, will be the first of the works to join BAM. The piece will be featured in the third-story window at the BAM Fisher theater this fall. It will stretch 14 ft. by 34 ft. and include 3,500 lights. The work is meant to connect to Villareal's existing work in the windows of the Peter Jay Sharp Building, Stars. It will use mirrored stainless steel to reflect its surroundings.

Villareal's second new piece, Volume, will also use stainless steel and LED light. That piece, set to be installed inside the upcoming BAM Karen space, will be 21 ft. by 21 ft. It will be hung from the ceiling on the second floor with windows on three sides. More than 11,000 LEDs and 441 mirrored stainless steel rods will be included.

The New York City-based artist has had his work featured in the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and in Japan. He created a 1.8-mile long installation of 25,000 LED lights on San Francisco's Bay Bridge and is currently working on Illuminated River, a piece that encompasses 15 badges in London.

(Peter Jay Sharp Building from GoogleMaps; Rendering not available for this piece).

Hank Willis Thomas

Thomas will create an original work for the rear wall of BAM’s Peter Jay Sharp Building, facing BAM Fisher. Thomas' work will examine the site's history in his work.

The conceptual artist has been featured in the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He was honored with the ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform in 2017 and is also a recipient of the Gordon Parks Fellowship this year and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018.


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