April 27, 2009
Roxy Paine's 'Maelstrom' opens on Met roof for summer
Weighing in at over 7 tons, Roxy Paine’s sprawling, site-specific sculpture “Maelstrom” opens to the public Tuesday on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
 Paine — whose work will be familiar to New Yorkers who saw his Conjoined, Defunct and Erratic trees in Madison Square Park in 2007 — becomes the twelfth consecutive single-artist to get the roof for a summer. Past installations include Jeff Koon’s balloons, “Frank Stella on the Roof” and Sol LeWitt’s “Splotches, Whirls and Twirls.”
This year’s “Maelstrom” is the largest sculpture ever installed on the museum’s roof. Made of stainless steel, it measures 130-feet long and 45 feet wide. It’s spindles out tree-like in all directions, sure to trip up art goers, especially during martini bar nights, which will resume Fridays and Saturdays from 5:30 to 8 p.m. (The roof garden cafe will also be open 10 a.m. until closing serving, sandwiches, desserts, soft drinks, espresso, wine and beer.)
As you enter the roof garden, the written introduction describes “Maelstrom” as Paine’s “magnum opus.” It’s part of his large-scale “dendroids” series, addressing themes such as artificiality and the natural world.
Statement by Artist Roxy Paine about Maelstrom (2009)
This piece exists in 5 states simultaneously:
1. A forest that’s been downed by an unseen, violent, catastrophic force, either natural or man-made (the Tunguska meteor event in Siberia is one reference)
2. A chaotic, uncontrolled force of nature: swirling, grinding, boiling, disordered, tumultuous, like a Maelstrom
3. A tree that is in the process of becoming abstract; that is stretching, expanding and contracting, breaking apart and coalescing again
4. A metaphor for a mental storm, such as occurs during an epileptic seizure. The dendritic forms suggest neural forms, they reference neural networks
5. An industrial pipeline run amok; acknowledging and embracing the industrial origins of the material itself. This is industrial pipe used typically in pharmaceutical and chemical facilities.
I call these projects “Dendroids” because it is a term which opens up a conceptual framework. These projects have always referred to, and resonated with, not only botanical structures such as trees, but also vascular, neural, and geologic systems, as well as engineered structures. The “oid” part of “dendroid” is important to me as it suggests “android” hybridization and robotization.
The roof is open through October 25 — “weather permitting.”
Update: The roof will remain open through Nov. 29.
April 27, 2009 3:14 PM in Cheap Stuff, Drinkology, Kids, Museums, Sightsology, Upper East Side
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