Barry Flanagan :: Large Left-Handed Drummer

"Dexterously the Drummer was right handed, there are examples in bronze from that mould in other locations.

The left handedness of this Drummer speaks to the other side of the brain, from the past to the future; another tune in composure.

Broadway!! A seed of hope after the conviction. I would subtitle this piece ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire.'"

– Barry Flanagan, on the installation of Large Left-Handed Drummer in Brooklyn, Summer 2007

New on the NMA Rooftop! Come look, dance around, and ring in the arrival of the wonderfully playful sculpture Large Left-Handed Drummer, by British sculptor Barry Flanagan. Flanagan is most well-known for his large-scale bronze hare sculptures, of which Large Left-Handed Drummer is one. It stands some 16 feet tall, and appears to be drumming out of some joy at looking out on the Northern Sierra and the Great Basin.

From the Irish Museum of Modern Art:

"Barry Flanagan’s series of hare sculptures, which he began in the late 1970s, are among the most instantly recognisable artworks of the last 20 years. Playful, spontaneous and full of life, many show their subject engaged in human activities – dancing, playing musical instruments and sports and, more recently, using technology. Visitors to IMMA are already familiar with The Drummer, which has marked the main entrance to the Museum since its donation by the artist in 2001. The exhibition brings together 11 similar works, spanning the many ingenious variations which Flanagan has brought to this strand of his work. In Empire State with Bowler Mirrored, 1997, for example, we see two matching hares stepping jauntily over the Empire State Building, while their more pensive counterpart in Large Troubadour, 2004, sits apparently disconsolately alongside his cello, as if questioning his ability as a musician.

"Flanagan sees the hare as a particularly suitable vehicle for these human endeavours and emotions, “…if you consider what conveys situation and meaning in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact more limited than the device of investing an animal – a hare especially – with the expressive attributes of a human being. The ears for instance are able to convey far more than a squint in the eye of a figure, or a grimace in the face of the model.”

Flanagan was born in North Wales in 1941. He studied at Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts before going on to further schooling at the St. Martin's School of Art in London, where he also taught after he completed his own schooling. He has also taught at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London. Flanagan represented Britain in the 1982 Venice Biennale. He has been the subject of major exhibitions all over the world, most recently in a major retrospective exhibition of his work at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. You'll also see a nice photograph of the sculpture installed in New York City at Flickr.

Kendall Buster :: Double Chalice: Joined and Separated

Kendall Buster b. 1954
Double Chalice: Joined and Separated, 1996
Steel, netting – 114” x 114” x 180”
Location: Nightingale Rooftop

Kendall Buster’s first field of study was microbiology, where she became fascinated with the beauty of what she saw under the microscope. The more she studied these micro-organisms, the more she felt as if she were entering an exotic alternate landscape. She decided to study art, in order to give substance to these forms. She received an MFA in sculpture from Yale University and began to bring her conceptions to life. She began to create large sculptural forms which appear to be objects occurring in nature, such as huge seed or pods or cells magnified a hundred times. They are organic shapes built over steel armatures and covered with semi-opaque netting. Buster enjoys the play between transparency and opacity in her work, as well as the contrasting feelings of welcome and menace. Commenting on a 1999 exhibition at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, David Cateforis describes Double Chalice: “…a pair of screen-covered skeletons, open to entry on either end and interlocking at the center. The composition suggests, in Buster’s words, a ‘mating machine,’ with the circular opening of the female side receiving the probe of the male element. Depending upon which side of the sculpture the visitor enters, he or she may identify either with the penetrator or the penetrated.”
Visitors to the NMA’s Double Chalice remark on the organic nature of her sculpture, but just as often describe it as a set of doorknobs, two cups, a barbell, a spider, parachutes, a jellyfish or a flower. The NMA chose it for the rooftop gallery because it can withstand weather as well as gentle touching—children are told they may pat it, but not poke it.Buster lives in Richmond Virginia, and teaches in the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Note prepared by Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley.

Ilan Averbuch :: Shadow of the Sun

Ilan Averbuch
Shadow of the Sun (Sombra del Sol), 1986

Stone and water (paving stones from New York City)
48” diameter circle
Location: Nightingale Rooftop
Acquisition: 2003 In Memory of K.C. Grellman, Gift to the NMA from the K.C. Grellman Fund

Shadow of the Sun is a circle of rough stones with a chiseled channel to collect water. Circular stone enclosures are a common – even ancient – focus for ritual or ceremony. Unlike heaps or piles of stones, circles are deliberate and have some aesthetic characteristics. When there is water in the sculpture there are allusions to ancient aqueducts, and agricultural irrigation systems. In looking at Averbuch’s sun circle, one is invited to walk all around it, to experience the rays going out in all directions. One may also have the urge to look up to the open expanse of sky above the space where the sculpture is installed. Most days it is a bright open space, but can also evoke feelings of a secure closed-in place for meditation.

Ilan Averbuch was born in Tel Aviv in 1953. He was educated in New York and has exhibited in the U.S., Canada, Europe, India and Israel. His themes are civilization and its history, and its interaction with nature. His outdoor sculptures make use of heavy, dense materials such as stone, lead, and chunky wooden beams. However, his indoor installations are of paper and glass, often balanced against strong, serious elements like iron and copper, with elegant results. In a 1997 interview with Sculpture magazine, Averbuch described his pieces as having archeological and architectural content, and discussed the influence of his Israeli heritage in his work. He lives and works in Long Island City, New York.

Note prepared by Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley.