About the Exhibition
Jean-Marie Appriou’s massive equine sculptures stand like surreal sentinels at the entrance to Central Park. The artist was inspired by the horses nearby who pull tourists in carriages through the city and by Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s gilded monument of William Tecumseh Sherman on horseback just opposite this site at Grand Army Plaza. However, Appriou’s sculptures poetically reimagine the species. The artist carved clay and foam models to cast in aluminum, emphasizing the tool marks and fingerprints of his tactile process. The works’ jagged textures and silvery surfaces create a dynamic play of light and shadow as we move around them, emphasizing the hallucinatory qualities of their composition and imbuing them with a dreamlike energy.
Appriou (b. 1986, Brest, France) has fashioned the forms of The Horses as fantastical beasts with hybrid characteristics and human qualities, placing them in a long tradition of mythological animal artworks. With their curious compositions and titles, these horses suggest: a daunting gateway formed by an armor-clad warrior (Le Guerrier/The Warrior), a forest of legs of entwined lovers (Les Amants au Bois/The Lovers in the Woods), and a sphinx-like mystic seated on its haunches and draped in an embellished cape (Le Joueur/The Player). They encourage us to make our own imaginative associations and to reconsider how civic sculpture addresses its public. Rather than an equestrian statue upon an elevated pedestal, these horses invite audiences through them, under them, and around them – bringing us closer to the formal dynamism and psychic mystery of these majestic creatures.
Jean-Marie Appriou: The Horses is curated by Public Art Fund Curator Daniel S. Palmer.
Image Gallery
About the Artist
Jean-Marie Appriou (b. 1986, Brest, France) graduated from Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Rennes in 2010. His work has been featured in solo presentations at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2018) and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014), as well as group presentations at Château de Versailles, France (2017); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2017); and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2014); among others. In 2019, his work will be featured in a solo presentation at Le Consortium, Dijon, France and part of La Biennale de Lyon, France.
Leadership support for The Horses is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Jennifer & Matthew Harris, and Wendy Fisher. Additional support is provided by Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich/New York, C L E A R I N G, New York/Brussels, Linda & Andrew Safran, Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, and Carole Server & Oliver Frankel.
The Horses is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Special thanks to the Office of the Mayor, Manhattan Borough President, NYC Parks, and Central Park Conservancy.
Public Art Fund is supported by the generosity of individuals, corporations, and private foundations including lead support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, along with major support from the Charina Endowment Fund, The Marc Haas Foundation, Hartfield Foundation, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, The Silverweed Foundation, and the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts.
Public Art Fund exhibitions and programs are also supported in part with public funds from government agencies, including the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
With special thanks to C L E A R I N G, New York/Brussels; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich/New York; and engineering partner Thornton Tomasetti.
