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Brooklyn Daily Eagle |
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Contemporary
Replicas of Early Downtown Brooklyn Sculptures To Be Restored to Flatbush and
Tillary DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN - Brooklyn
artist Brian Tolle is in the process of designing a contemporary version of
some old sculptures that used to adorn the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge
on the Brooklyn side. The city’s Design Commission at
its meeting last month, approved the “Installation of artwork by Brian Tolle”
at Flatbush Avenue Extension and Tillary Street in Downtown Brooklyn. A native New Yorker who works in
Brooklyn, Tolle is designing contemporary replicas of the original sculptures
that were removed in 1961. “In 1961, Robert Moses ordered the
demolition of the Brooklyn entrance to the Manhattan Bridge. As a result, two
allegorical sculptures created by Daniel Chester French representing Brooklyn
and Manhattan were relocated to the Brooklyn Museum,” Tolle wrote in his
presentation. Tolle’s sculptures, which will be
10 feet tall and seven feet in diameter, will be perched 24 feet above the
roadway at their original height. While the original figures were carved from
granite, the reincarnated sculptures will be cast in translucent ice blue
fiberglass resin with a matte surface, he said. The statues will be lit from
within creating a ghostly appearance at night, according to Tolle, who is not
ready to reveal his sketches to the public yet. Unlike the static presentation of
the original sculptures the new work sets the figures in motion, orbiting and
rotating around each other in a perpetual dance. By restoring art to the bridge’s
approach, this project addresses the original loss and the cultural climate
that allowed it. “In 1961, art on the Brooklyn side
of the bridge was seen as an obstacle in the way of progress,” Tolle said.
“Today urban designers are providing new and innovative places thus
re-establishing the power of art in our city’s public spaces.” According to Tolle’s biography, architecture,
site and technology are recurring themes in his sculptures and installations.
Using a variety of media, his work draws from the scale and experience of its
surroundings, provoking a re-reading by cross-wiring reality and fiction. Best known locally for the Irish
Hunger Memorial in Battery Park City, he is the recipient of the Design
Commission’s Award for Excellence in Design and has received awards from the
Irish American Historical Society and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. For more than a decade, Tolle’s
work has been exhibited all over the world. He has a BFA from Parsons the New
School for Design and an MFA from Yale. The sculpture will be one element
of streetspace work planned by the city, according to a spokesperson at the
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. “It will include a planted median,
granite curbs, concrete sidewalks, new pedestrian-scale lighting, grade level
plantings, seating and bike racks,” he said, adding that construction is
expected to begin in late spring 2009, with completion estimated in 2011. |
