Jun 7, 2009 10:40 am US/Eastern
CBS 2 At The Met: Maelstrom
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
A giant, stainless steel structure swirls, twists and weaves its way across the Rooftop Garden at the Met.
Surrounded by lush Central Park and the geometric Manhattan skyline, the sculpture's knarley branches stretch this way and that, in chaotic order. Brooklyn artist Roxy Paine calls it "Maelstrom."
Known for his mega-outdoor works of art, Paine was honored to be asked by the Met three years ago to custom create a design for the Cantor Rooftop Garden. The outdoor gallery features the work of a solo artist every spring for six months.
This is the most ambitious project for Roxy Paine and for the Met Roof Garden. Visitors are invited to walk right through it and explore it. "Maelstrom," is 130 long, 29 feet high, and 45 feet wide.
Paine says "Maelstrom" has multiple meanings. A forest downed by an enormous force,
trees becoming abstract and unrecognizable, an industrial pipeline run amok, and the artist tells CBS2's Dana Tyler, there's a human theme.
"The fifth metaphor for mental storm during an epileptic seizure, electrical impulses, rampant going through the brain, there are several neural references, these are like neurons," says Paine.
Associate Curator Anne Strauss, who made that call to Paine three years ago, says this city rooftop with a lush backdrop, is the ideal setting for Roxy Paine's sculpture.
Strauss explains to Tyler. "It is really looking at the interplay between the natural and industrial world, and that's our setting, Central Park and the buildings beyond."
Paine and his crew of six worked around the clock the past year in his upstate studio to make the Met Spring deadline. Imagine the enormous space needed to create this, to weld the steel piping, normally used in factories. And how do you get this giant web from there to here?
Paine says, "It was all on flatbed trucks, two in the morning, sneak into Manhattan. You had to get the permits, eight flatbed trucks all broken down into 81 components."
Lean on it, touch, get up close and you never know when the artist will be on the roof, too.
Explore Roxy Paine's urban jungle "Maelstrom," on the Met's Cantor Roof Garden through October 25, weather permitting.
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