Ewerdt Hilgemann Sculptures Coming to Park Avenue

Ewerdt Hilgemann, Habakuk (Homage to Max Ernst).
Courtesy the artist.

After Alice Aycock’s steel twisters took a spin through Midtown Manhattan, Amsterdam-based German artist Ewerdt Hilgemann will be the next one to be featured in the Fund for Park Avenue‘s series of public art installations. Stationed on Park Avenue’s verdant median between 52nd and 67th streets, the exhibition—titled “Moments in a Stream”—will bring together seven of his stainless steel “Implosion” sculptures.

The pieces, executed specifically for this show, will range in height from 8 to 20 feet. The works are made through a vacuuming process that causes geometric steel shapes to collapse in on themselves, distorting and twisting their lines and panes. Once each sculpture is assembled, Hilgemann uses a pump to suck the air out of it, causing the works to crumple and shrink in unexpected ways.

“To me the implosion represents the inward spiral of energy to reach the core and mystery of matter, the ultimate beauty of creation,” the artist said in a statement.

Hilgemann was heavily influenced by the artists of Germany’s ZERO group, who will be the focus of the Guggenheim’s “Countdown to Tomorrow: The International ZERO Network, 1950s-60s,” slated to open the same month “Moments in a Stream” closes. The artist’s New York gallery, Magnan Metz, is opening a concurrent solo show of his work, running August 7–21. Previous artists in the Sculpture on Park Avenue series have included Robert Indiana, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yoshimoto Nara, Will Ryman, and more.

“Moments in a Stream” will run August 1–October 31 on Park Avenue.


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