Bob Emser Exhibits New Work in Perth, Australia

Perth, Australia – International Chicago sculptor, Bob Emser, presented a new sculpture at the 7th ANNUAL COTTESLOE EXHIBITION of Sculpture by the Sea, exhibited at Cottesloe Beach from March 3 – 22, 2011. Emser is one of over 60 International and Australian artists invited to exhibit this year. With an estimated 450,000 visitors over the 3 weeks, the sculptures transform Perth’s most popular beach into a stunning sculpture park overlooking the Indian Ocean for all to enjoy from sunrise to sunset.

Emser’s sculpture, Wind of Change, is a juxtaposition of contemporary materials, soft strength, and unique vision, not duplicated by other contemporary sculptors, which make his work important to know and wonderful to see. Emser’s frequent use of copper color and aluminum mesh catch light and shadow beautifully, making this sculpture seem to float in the sea.
“As daylight changes from early dawn to high noon to dusk, that color really changes and seems to work well in all types of environments from a rich green landscape to a serene blue seascape,” said Emser. “I’m fascinated by it for that reason.”

This is Bob Emser’s second work to been shown in Cottesloe, the first being in 2010. He has also exhibited his work in 4 exhibitions in Sydney’s Bondi show. The concept for Sculpture by the Sea is the brainchild of David Handley, Founding Director. The exhibition came from Handley’s desire to create a major free public arts event for Perth and Sydney.

Take a virtual tour of the sculptures and show at Cottesloe in all its pristine beauty with people naturally interacting. Here is the link: http://www.virtualtourphotographysydney.com.au/sxscottesloe2011/index.html.

For additional information on this exhibit visit www.sculpturebythesea.com More of Bob Emser’s work can be seen at www.BobEmser.com.

After winning prestigious award, Eureka Sculptor, Bob Emser, free to pursue his dreams

By Dan Craft  | dcraft@pantagraph.com

Photoshopped image of proposed "Winged Project" by Bob Emser

EUREKA — Beauty, as we know, is measured in the beholder’s eye.

The eye of Eureka artist Bob Emser has long beheld beauty in the sleek contours of airplane wings.

He describes that allure as “inherent,” regardless of size or scale or position.

A detached wing is no less appealing to him than one firmly in place; an unfinished wing is no less aesthetic than one with its skin on.

This sense of beauty was nurtured as a young boy growing up the son of a mechanical engineer in East Peoria.

Together, father and son would assemble model airplanes, usually made of balsa wood.

“They were probably my first sculptural experiences,” says the internationally exhibited artist and winner of one of the art world’s prestigious honors, the 2010 Pollock-Krasner Award.

“What I really liked about them,” Emser says, “was the sculptural quality of the flat shapes coming together and creating an organic, sensuous form.”

True confessions: “I never completely finished most of the models — just the wings.”

In fact,

Tom Otterness to create Gateway Sculpture for Centennial Sculpture Park

Karen Miltner • Staff writer • Democrat and Chronicle.com

The Memorial Art Gallery plans to turn its stately lawn, currently defined by a wrought-iron fence, into a playful, almost childlike open-space narrative on sculpture.

The first phase for the Centennial Sculpture Park, which the museum unveiled this week, includes MAG’s largest acquisition to date and will dominate more than half an acre at the northwest corner of University Avenue and South Goodman Street and coincide with the city of Rochester’s ArtWalk. Tom Otterness, an artist with a national reputation for his public works, has been commissioned to create the site-specific project, which will be completed in time for the museum’s 100th anniversary in fall 2013.

“I see it as opening up the grounds like the old town square, people come and sit, read, play guitar, talk, eat, then follow the paths up to the gallery itself,” says MAG director Grant Holcomb. “We are in essence making an urban park.”

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James Surls Sculptures On The Rice Campus

By Hallie Jordan

James Surls, the sculptor who had seven of his art pieces installed at Rice University last month, enlightened a crowd there recently about his art philosophy and the ideas behind his plant-like sculptures.

The seven pieces in the exhibit, which arrived February 21, are entitled Magnficent Seven: Houston Celebrates Surls and reflect a connection with nature, featuring titles like “All Diamond,” “Ten Big Standing Bronze Flowers” and “Standing Vase With Five Flowers,” among others. Previous to their appearance in Houston, five of the seven pieces on display were exhibited on Park Avenue in New York.

The sculptures will remain at Rice until August 31.

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Antony Gormley Naked Men on Roofs

Review by Katya Kazakina

March 24 (Bloomberg) — Naked men loom from rooftop and ledge, disturbing pedestrians in lower Manhattan, where British artist Antony Gormley inaugurated his “Event Horizon” installation yesterday.

The 31 life-size figures are almost identical in appearance though they differ in material and weight. The four made of cast iron weigh 1,433 pounds each and the rest in fiberglass weigh 66 pounds each. They were made from body casts of the artist.

“They are tiny little things given the total complexity of the city,” said Gormley, 59, in an interview yesterday, a small thing himself from the perspective of his creations atop the Flatiron building and the Madison Avenue building

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Bob Emser Sculpture Installation

New York Sculptor Tony Rosenthal Dies at 94

NEW YORK—Sculptor Tony Rosenthal, 94, known for his public artworks, died of a stroke July 28 in Southampton, N.Y., the New York Times reports. His most well-known sculpture may be a work from 1967, Alamo, a 15-square-foot, rotating black cube of painted Cor-Ten Steel located in Astor Place in New York’s East Village. The sculpture was originally installed as part of a program of temporary projects, but after a petition from the neighborhood’s residents, the installation became permanent. Four other public sculptures by Rosenthal stand in Manhattan, as well as dozens of similar ones in cities across the country. His work has been included in exhibitions at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, and in 1999 Rizzoli published a monograph about him.

Robert Indiana’s HOPE a celebration of Barack Obama’s message.

NEW YORK (AP) — The pop artist best known for his LOVE word sculpture has created a similar public art installation that spells HOPE — in celebration of Barack Obama’s message of hope.

New York Artist Robert Indiana’s HOPE was unveiled Thursday at Jim Kempner Fine Art, a Manhattan gallery.

Indiana’s publicist says the artist raised more than $1 million for the Obama campaign by creating HOPE prints, posters, T-shirts and other memorabilia. No decision has yet been made on where the sculpture will be permanently displayed.

The 6-foot stainless steel sculpture was shown privately during the Democratic National Convention in Denver last August.

Versions of Indiana’s classic LOVE sculpture appear in several cities around the world, including Philadelphia.

Louise Bourgeois Retrospective at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

AP Photo by Francois Mori

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present a major retrospective of the works of Louise Bourgeois from Feb. 26 through May 17. Bourgeois, a leading figure in 20th century art, is an American who was born in Paris in 1911 and has lived in New York since 1938. The exhibition will fill the museum’s second-level galleries with over 120 works, primarily sculptural pieces, along with paintings and drawings. The last venue on a five-city world tour, the presentation at the Hirshhorn has been expanded to include five more major sculptures. Among them is the large “Crouching Spider” (2003). The nearly nine-foot-tall bronze-and-steel spider has already been installed outside the museum’s entrance, acting as an imposing greeter.

Throughout her 70-year career, Bourgeois

Bill FitzGibbons “Daystar Arch” installed

Bill FitzGibbons, installed, Daystar Arch, a 40-foot-tall arch made of jet wings with fiber optics, at the San Antonio International Airport, a project of the city’s Design Enhancement Program. The sculpture is located in the Daystar Plaza at the northwest corner of the airport, near the new parking garage.

Bill FitzGibbons received his BFA in Sculpture and Art History from the University of Tennessee, and his MFA in Sculpture and Multi-Media from Washington University in St. Louis. Bill has received over thirty public art commissions in five countries. In 1979 he became the first curator at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1985 until 1988 he was appointed as the Director of Sculpture at the Visual Art Center in Anchorage, Alaska. In 1988 he became the Department Head of Sculpture at the San Antonio Art Institute. In 1991 he was selected as a Fulbright Scholar for the Hungarian Art Academy in Budapest, Hungary. Bill has served on the adjunct faculty at Trinity University in San Antonio and has been the Executive Director of the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center since the summer of 2002. Currently Bill serves on the board of directors of the International Sculpture Center.