Press Release
Artist Bio
Sponsorship
Location
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bronze

Parklife

October 9, 2002 -
September 15, 2003

MetroTech Center, Brooklyn

Public Art Fund and the Commons Associates are proud to present a new exhibition of contemporary art at MetroTech Center. Parklife continues MetroTech's commitment to supporting the work of emerging New York artists. Each year artists are asked to respond to the Commons, the public spaces surrounding the vibrant downtown areas of MetroTech Center and Brooklyn Polytechnic. The artists selected for this year's exhibition - Isidro Blasco, Liz Craft, Peter Gould, Elke Lehmann, and Franco Mondini-Ruiz - have each created new works that react to the area's landscaped surroundings.

Lasso of Love, a cast bronze sculpture, is characteristic of Liz Craft's playful yet accomplished approach to art-making. A thick rope, rising upward from its coiled base to form a lasso loop, dangles with twelve larger-than-life charms. Each charm represents a different zodiac symbol-the Gemini twins, Taurus's bull, Virgo's maiden, and so on. Made entirely of bronze, Lasso of Love rises six feet into the air, a paradoxically vertical position for a length of rope. Referencing astrology, psychedelic aesthetics, and childhood toys, Lasso of Love is a topsy-turvy view of the cosmos, prompting speculation as to whether Craft's charmed work is reaching upwards or has fallen from above.

Artist Bio
Liz Craft, a Los Angeles-based artist, creates large-scale sculptural works full of pop culture references and dreamlike appeal. Working in a variety of materials-including polyurethane, fiberglass, bronze and wood-Craft depicts recognizable objects or creatures in unusual ways that exaggerate and complicate their everydayness. Death Rider, a recent cast bronze sculpture depicting a skeleton and a woman on a motorcycle joyride, brought to mind not just bikers and 1960s counterculture, but also pirates, cowboys and other rebellious antiheroes. Her works, which often draw upon familiar cultural iconography and archetypes, do so with mischievous sophistication rather than nostalgic allure.

Sponsorship
Parklife at MetroTech Center is part of an ongoing program organized by the Public Art Fund and sponsored by MetroTech Commons Associates, an organization that consists of MetroTech companies Bear Stearns & Company, KeySpan Energy, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Forest City Ratner Companies, Polytechnic University, Securities Industry Automation Corporation (SIAC), DOITT and E-911. Special thanks to First New York Management.

Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported in part with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and through generous contributions from corporations, foundations, and individuals.

Location
MetroTech Center is situated in the in the Civic Center/Borough Hall area of Downtown Brooklyn.
By Subway: M, N, or R to Lawrence Street Station or the A, C, or F to Jay Street/ Borough Hall, exit at Myrtle Promenade.