This new public art initiative at Rockefeller Center will exhibit from april 25th through june 28th, 2019. Presented in partnership with Tishman Speyer, frieze sculpture 2019 was curated by Brett Littman, director of the Isamu Noguchi foundation and garden museum in Long Island City, New York. While Jaume Plensa’s ‘Behind the walls’ stands at the head of the center’s promenade, the sprawl of art throughout the frieze sculpture exhibition encourages the viewer to further explore the whole campus, including its interior spaces and hidden histories.
“I began to think about the layers of history and the concept of Rock Center, ‘a city within a city,’” explains Brett Littman, curator of Frieze Sculpture and director of The Noguchi Museum. “I wanted to move away from the monumental, to think about life-size sculptures and smaller gestures that I could accumulate," he says of Frieze Sculpture.
“We wanted things that work in scale to the body,” continues Loring Randolph, artistic director of Frieze New York. “No stanchions, no barriers, everything is fully accessible.” This ethos has given Frieze Sculpture a rare quality in a large-scale sculpture show: a sense of intimacy framed by monumentality. The works Littman selected don’t only draw attention to themselves; they awaken the eye to the art and architecture that has defined Rock Center since its earliest days. This show is a study in striking difficult and beautiful balances. It encourages the audience to look within—and without—themselves, and engages with history while maintaining a strong sense of immediacy.
