Organized by Public Art Fund, Life in the Abstract is Wyatt Kahn’s first public art exhibition, comprising seven new monumental sculptures fabricated in Cor-Ten steel.
Kahn has examined the relationships between painting and sculpture throughout his career. He has constructed a distinctive visual vocabulary of geometric and representational forms that integrate aesthetic concerns with quotidian objects.
Each sculpture juxtaposes components adapted from Kahn’s abstract canvas paintings with “readymade” items like eyeglasses, clock, comb, hand, foot and other elements from his domestic life. The artist translated 17 line drawings into large welded steel blocks and arranged them in ways that suggest imaginative narrative compositions. The subtle, painterly nuance of their weathered rusted surfaces expands Kahn’s dialogue between painting and sculpture.
Sited in City Hall Park, the works open a conversation between the private sphere of the artist’s life and the public realm of urban architecture, landscape and infrastructure. Life in the Abstract adds to the lineage of modernist public sculpture, infusing it with both playfulness and rigor, reminding us that the creation of abstract ideas and the business of daily life go hand in hand.
Wyatt Kahn: Life in the Abstract is curated by Public Art Fund Curator Daniel S. Palmer.
Address:
City Hall Park
Broadway &, Chambers St
New York, NY 10007
United States
WYATT KAHN
Untitled
2021
Corten Steel
Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
226.5 x 152 x 213 cm / 89 1/8 x 59 7/8 x 83 7/8 in
KAHNW46294
WYATT KAHN
Parade
2021
Corten Steel
Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
248.5 x 472.5 x 152.5 cm / 97 3/4 x 186 x 60 in
KAHNW46295
WYATT KAHN
Painting The Painter
2021
Corten Steel
Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
234.5 x 140 x 148 cm / 92 3/8 x 55 1/4 x 58 3/8 in
KAHNW46296
WYATT KAHN
Sideways Curl
2021
Corten Steel
Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
186.5 x 199 x 174 cm / 73 1/2 x 78 1/4 x 68 1/2 in
KAHNW46297
WYATT KAHN
Morning
2021
Corten Steel
Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
306 x 277 x 106.5 cm / 120 3/8 x 109 x 42 in
KAHNW46298
WYATT KAHN
Umbrella
2021
Corten Steel
Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
228 x 272 x 160 cm / 89 3/4 x 107 x 63 in
KAHNW46299
WYATT KAHN
The friends
2021
Corten Steel
Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
164 x 251.5 x 101.5 cm / 64 1/2 x 99 x 40 in
KAHNW46300
