Press Release (.pdf: 27k)
Artist Bio
Sponsorship
Location
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mixed media

Semiprecious

September 29, 2004 - August 31, 2005

MetroTech Center, Brooklyn

Public Art Fund is proud to present a new exhibition of contemporary art at MetroTech Center. Semiprecious features works by Carolyn Castaño, Jennifer Cohen, Luis Gispert, Kirsten Hassenfeld, and Marc Swanson, each of whom use visually dazzling materials to explore themes of artifice, seduction, desire, exoticism, and fantasy. With a critical eye toward the precious object, these artists explore the elements of melancholy, romance, and sensuality that lie beneath the sparkling surface.

For the lobby of One MetroTech Center, Carolyn Castaño created Nightbird (A Memory of Things Lost and Found Again), her first sculptural work. Bringing the outside indoors, Nightbird is a bejeweled peacock, painted in rich, metallic shades of blue, silver, and black. The peacock's closed tail, which drapes over the edge of the pedestal, is covered in gems, crystal brooches, and cameos found at flea markets and elsewhere. This exotic bird has made frequent appearances throughout the course of art history--most famously in the work of Art Nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley--often as a symbol of beauty, vanity, and femininity, despite the fact that it is the male who has colorful plumage.

Artist Bio
Carolyn Castaño lives and works in Los Angeles. She is best known for her mixed-media works on paper, in which she renders her seductive and flamboyantly colorful imagery against a white background. She received an MFA from UCLA, and has recently had solo exhibitions at Lombard Fried Fine Arts in New York and Kontainer Gallery in Los Angeles.

Sponsorship
Semiprecious 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, Forest City Ratner Companies, JPMorganChase, KeySpan, and Polytechnic University. Special thanks to Forest City Ratner Companies and First New York Management.

Location
MetroTech Center is located in Downtown Brooklyn between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue at Myrtle Avenue. Viewing hours are dawn to dusk daily for outdoor works, Monday through Friday 8am to 6pm for Carolyn Castaño's Nightbird in One MetroTech. Subway: A, C, F to Jay Street/Borough Hall, exit at Myrtle Promenade; R to Lawrence Street.