DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- New York Avenue Sculpture Project -- Magdalena Abakanowicz:
Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
Description of Pictures: Magdalena Abakanowicz
Sep 27, 2014 - Sep 27, 2015
This installation included a range of figurative works by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. Her monumentally-scaled sculptures of grouped human figures and birds in flight exemplify issues universal to humankind: the power of nature, the force of destruction and the resiliency of hope. Abakanowicz’s art is often inspired by her experiences and observations during World War II and its repressive postwar climate.
The New York Avenue Sculpture Project is the only public art space featuring changing installations of contemporary works by women artists in Washington, D.C.
The Sculpture Project illustrates the museum’s long-term commitment to the artistic beautification of New York Avenue, fostering a vibrant new identity for the neighborhood just east of the White House. Established in in 2010, the evolving public art program is a collaboration between the museum, the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID), the DC Office of Planning, and other local agencies.
Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show?
[Slideshow]
Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
NYASP_150827_071.JPG: New York Avenue Sculpture Project
Women in the Arts
The Sculpture Project:
The New York Avenue Sculpture Project is a public art program of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The dynamic project brings to Washington, D.C., major sculptures by important contemporary women artists. Each artist's sculptures will be on view for approximately one to two years and then will be replaced by another artist's works. The artists' inventive compositions and innovative use of materials stand in contrast to more traditional sculptural monuments seen throughout the nation's capital.
NYASP_150827_084.JPG: New York Avenue Sculpture Project
Magdalena Abakanowicz
The Artist:
A powerful source of inspiration for Magdalena Abakanowicz (b. 1930) is her experience of World War II and repressive postwar regimes in Poland, where she lives and works. Her sculptures extend from her biography but also explore the broader human condition. The textured surfaces of Abakanowicz's steel and bronze outdoor sculptures (cast from burlap, wood, or plaster) demonstrate her preference for earthy, expressive materials.
The Sculptures:
Abakanowicz typically develops a motif among numerous sculptures that are grouped together. Although objects appear similar, individual sculptures feature unique proportions and surface textures. This installation of the Sculpture Project presents a selection of Abakanowicz's abstracted human figures and birds that seem to stand, walk, and fly along New York Avenue, their journeys echoed by drivers and pedestrians moving down the street.
NYASP_150827_087.JPG: Magdalena Abakanowicz, The Second Never Seen Figure On Beam with Wheels, 2001, bronze.
Disks and wheels on Abakanowicz's sculptures signify transition or dislocation. The squared-off axle here appears more like a balance beam. The figure atop the beam stands straight and tall, exuding strength and dignity, but its heals and toes extend precariously beyond the beam's edges.
NYASP_150827_089.JPG: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Walking Figures, 2009, bronze.
Abakanowicz uses fragments of the body to evoke a range of moods and ideas. Sculpted without heads or arms, these striding figures may alternately be perceived as powerful and aggressive, or wounded or intrepid. Cast in bronze from fabric models, the monumental figures are also shell-like, suggesting the resilience -- and fragility -- of the human spirit.
NYASP_150827_092.JPG: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Stainless Bird on Pole I, II, and III, all 2009, stainless steel.
Constructed from welded pieces of stainless steel, Abakanowicz's colossal birds appear to be avian hybrids, both biological and mechanical in nature. Although the artist finds inspiration in organic forms, she notes, "My imagination produces forms which are not needed in the world of nature."
Description of Subject Matter: New York Avenue Sculpture Project
New York Ave NW
between 12th & 13th
www.nmwa.org/sculptureproject/
The New York Avenue Sculpture Project is the first and only major outdoor sculpture corridor in the Nation’s capital, featuring changing installations of world-class art by women.
This private-public partnership spearheaded by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) was developed in collaboration with the DC Office of Planning and the Downtown BID.
The Sculpture Project is a revitalization initiative that will change the face of downtown New York Avenue, N.W. between 13th and 9th streets so that it once again becomes a destination point. Not only will this new public art space transform the downtown D.C. area, but it will also promote cultural tourism and provide free access to the arts for the community.
The above is from http://www.downtowndc.org/go/new-york-avenue-sculpture-project
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- New York Avenue Sculpture Project) directly related to this one:
[Display ALL photos on one page]:
2021_DC_NMWA_NYASP: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- New York Avenue Sculpture Project (6 photos from 2021)
2019_DC_NMWA_NYASP: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- New York Avenue Sculpture Project -- Betsabeé Romero (30 photos from 2019)
2018_DC_NMWA_NYASP: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- New York Avenue Sculpture Project -- Betsabeé Romero (34 photos from 2018)
2012_DC_NMWA_NYASP: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- New York Avenue Sculpture Project -- Chakaia Booker (6 photos from 2012)
2010_DC_NMWA_NYASP: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- New York Avenue Sculpture Project -- Niki de Saint Phalle (58 photos from 2010)
Generally-Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC -- Penn Qtr -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts (1250 New York Ave NW)) somewhat related to this one:
[Display ALL photos on one page]:
2014_DC_NMWA_Helena: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Library Exhibit: The First Woman Graphic Novelist: Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichová (25 photos from 2014)
2019_DC_NMWA_Power: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Library Exhibit: Power in My Hand: Women Poets, Women Artists, and Social Change (52 photos from 2019)
2018_DC_NMWA_Living: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Library Exhibit: Making a Living: Women Artists Illustrating Books (33 photos from 2018)
2018_DC_NMWA_House: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Exhibit: Women House (42 photos from 2018)
2019_DC_NMWA_Ursula: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Exhibit: Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling (47 photos from 2019)
2016_DC_NMWA_Salon: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Exhibit: Salon Style (16 photos from 2016)
2018_DC_NMWA_Rodarte: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Exhibit: Rodarte (225 photos from 2018)
2019_DC_NMWA_More: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Exhibit: More is More: Multiples (47 photos from 2019)
2021_DC_NMWA_Girlhood: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Exhibit: Mary Ellen Mark: Girlhood (5 photos from 2021)
2018_DC_NMWA_Hung_Liu: DC -- Natl Museum of Women in the Arts -- Exhibit: Hung Liu In Print (21 photos from 2018)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject:
[Museums (Art)][Public Art]
2015 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
I retired from the US Census Bureau in god-forsaken Suitland, Maryland on my 58th birthday in May. Yee ha!
Trips this year:
a quick trip to Florida.
two Civil War Trust conferences (Raleigh, NC and Richmond, VA), and
my 10th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles).
Ego Strokes: Carolyn Cerbin used a Kevin Costner photo in her USA Today article. Miss DC pictures were used a few times in the Washington Post.
Number of photos taken this year: just over 550,000.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Limiting Text: You can turn off all of this text by clicking this link:
[Thumbnails Only]