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Rockefeller Center: The Flag Project

8/7/2020

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​Boston Artist Eddie Bruckner’s work has been selected by Rockefeller Center for its latest public art installation in New York City.
 
The international design challenge was issued in May by the New York City landmark.  Rockefeller Center asked artists to design flags that represented any aspect of New York’s diverse culture and to submit them by June 20.  The competition received more than 1,400 entries from around the world.  Winning entries were selected by Rockefeller Center and a jurying committee comprised of Casey Fremont (Executive Director, Art Production Fund), Ernest Green (civil rights advocate), Margaret Morton (Director of Creativity and Free Expression, Ford Foundation), Faith Ringgold (artist), and the Ali Forney Center. Each winning design was produced into an eight by five foot flag.
  Only 193 flag designs were selected for the temporary public art exhibit.
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The flags will fly around The Rockefeller Center’s famous ice rink and restaurant plaza, supplanting the flags of the members of the United Nations that usually fly there. The exhibit was scheduled to be on display from August 1-16, 2020, but due to popular demand, the public art installation has been extended through August 23, 2020.
Bruckner’s flag design features the iconic Statue of Liberty using his signature style of bold lines and the illusion of mosaic tile. “My flag design is based on an original acrylic on canvas painting titled, “Liberty” of the Statue of Liberty holding her torch high and proud, against a blue mosaic-like sky. In many ways the illusion of mosaic tile (it’s all paint) represents the melting pot of people, cultures, immigrants, who arrived in NYC in the past as well as those who call New York City home today.”
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Bruckner is a professional visual artist who creates Pop Art original acrylic paintings for the contemporary home and office as well as involved in a variety of public art projects throughout the greater Boston area and beyond.  Bruckner painted piano for the Celebrity Series of Boston and the global art installation, “Play Me, I’m Yours” that was featured at Boston City Hall Plaza with Mayor Marty Walsh in 2016.  The following year, Bruckner was commissioned by the City of Boston’s Public Art Commission to paint an electrical box near Fenway Park, also completed a second electrical box with a Boston Marathon Theme along the Marathon route in Natick, MA.

“I’m excited about the actual process of creating Public Art.  My artwork is about having fun, bringing a smile to people’s faces, and at the same time, providing a unique way of experiencing some of our most familiar objects, places, or people.  I view my artwork as a visual representation of happiness, love, and the beautification of physical space and I love how Public Art achieves this goal and reaches so many people.”

Bruckner’s flag design is exhibited alongside notable artists and designers such as Carmen Herrera, Christian Siriano, Faith Ringgold, Hank Willis Thomas, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, KAWS, Laurie Anderson, Marina Abramović, Sanford Biggers, Sarah Sze, Shantell Martin, and Steve Powers.
 
Rob Speyer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tishman Speyer (the real estate management company of Rockefeller Center) said, “There are as many ways to celebrate the strength, vibrancy, and spirit of New York as there are people in our city.  We are thrilled that so many emerging and acclaimed artists are taking part in The Flag Project, and we are excited to share all the original works in one place, surrounding the beloved skating rink at Rockefeller Center.  Since it was built almost 90 years ago, the Center has been a place to honor our city and reaffirm our longstanding commitment to public art.”
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The Rockefeller Center Flag Design was based on the Original Acrylic on Canvas Painting by Eddie Bruckner, "Liberty"
Bruckner said, “I'm honored to be a part of this project alongside so many talented artists; a project that brings a little bit of happiness and joy during the Covid-19 pandemic.  The Flag Project helps usher in a new era of togetherness and human connection amidst a difficult time.”
 
“Those of us selected have connected on social media.  We have a Facebook page and Instagram handle where we communicate.  It’s been so exciting to see the diverse range of artwork from all over the world.  Those artists living in New York or able to travel there are taking pictures and videos of the public art installation for those artists who can’t be there at this challenging time.”
The exhibition is free and open to the public through August 16, 2020; no tickets are required.  Visitors to this temporary public art installation are encouraged to post photos and videos to social media using the hashtags:  #TheFlagProjectRC and #RockefellerCenter.
 
Additional resources can be found at:

https://www.rockefellercenter.com/flag-project/
 
https://www.eddiebruckner.com/rockefeller-center-flag-project.html
 
https://www.instagram.com/eddiebrucknerfineart
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Matisse in the Studio and the MFA Boston

5/1/2017

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I had the pleasure of visiting the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, which is always an incredible experience.  There are always new exhibits to see as well as a chance to see some of one's favorite works of art since visiting last.  

Henri Matisse, perhaps one of the most famous artists in the world, was the subject of a fascinating exhibit.  The "Matisse in the Studio" exhibit pushed the limits of how one experiences Matisse's work.  Having seen his artwork countless of times at museums all over the world, including visiting the Matisse Museum in the south of France, I've never quite have seen artwork presented in this unique format.

Henri Matisse was an artist who revolutionized 20th Century art.  This international exhibition examines the critical importance of the objects in Matisse's studio and how they influenced his creative process and finished artwork.

The exhibit has a number of thematic sections that each focus on different stages of his career as an artist. Matisse didn't limit his work to one medium like painting or sculpture, but also did many drawings, cut-outs, collages, prints, and more.  What makes this exhibit particularly fascinating is that the artwork is presented next to the objects that helped inspire Matisse's creativity and served as subject matter for much of his work.  Matisse found inspiration everywhere:  In sculpture, in a chocolate pot, textiles, furniture.
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In the painting here to the left, "Goldfish and Sculpture," Matisse presents  the bronze sculpture below of a quintessential feminine pose from the history of European sculpture.
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Below, the pewter jug served as inspiration for the painting below.  You can see how the curved lines of the jug, the waviness, are imitated in the lines of the background tapestry, the woman's robe, and the actual jug he painted as a vase of flowers.  As you can see in the close-up photos below, the wavy lines are not painted on, but Matisse rather scratched the paint off the surface of the canvas.  This reminds me of how I used this technique in some of my artwork.  You can see some of those paintings here and here.
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Show above is a table that appears in the painting to the left.  And below is a female torso Roman sculpture that Matisse used to create the "Formes, Plate IX" for the illustrated book "Jazz".  Matisse used cut paper as its own medium.  He also uses Guache paint on paper that he cut and pasted on canvas to create "Mimosa" and "Panel with Mask".  The movie, "A Model for Matisse" discussed the relationship between Matisse and his longtime friend and nun, Sister Jacques-Marie.  Their relationship began when she started working for him as his nurse, but later she often served as a model for Matisse's most famous artworks.  The nun also helped paint the paper that Matisse used for his cutouts.  The sister was instrumental in helping Matisse design the Vence Chapel (the Chapelle du Rosaire), one of his greatest accomplishments in his career as an artist.  The two large cutouts were designs for the robes that the priests were to wear while celebrating Catholic Mass.  
The "Matisse in the Studio" exhibit runs from April 9, 2017 to July 9, 2017.  For more information, please visit www.mfa.org.
Make Way for Ducklings
Another special, but smaller (one room) exhibit that runs through June 18, 2017 features the art of Robert McCloskey.  Anyone who has visited the Boston Public Garden or has read the beloved children's book set in Boston, "Make Way for Ducklings," knows Robert McCloskey's artwork quite well.  This unique and very "Boston" exhibit is a retrospective of his beautiful illustration work for "Make Way For Ducklings" as well as other famous children's books such as,  "Blueberries for Sal," "Time of Wonder," and many more. 

"Make Way For Ducklings" is a story about a family of ducks who stopped Boston traffic by making their way to the Public Garden.  Originally, McCloskey wanted to illustrate the book in color, as shown in the colored pencil draing below, however due to the high costs of color printing at the time, the editor chose to print the book with brown ink.

There is a beautiful bronze sculpture model on exhibit (Shown in the photo to the right).  Commissioned in 1985, artist Nancy Schon created the full-sized Make Way For Ducklings sculpture that has been delighting visitors of all ages at the entrance of the Boston Public Garden at the intersection of Charles St. and Beacon St.

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Art of the Americas. Level 3
Below is just a few snapshots I took during this visit to the MFA, some of my old favorites as well as some new favorites.  Below from are some wonderful photos of Piet Mondrian's work, "Composition with Blue, Yellow, and Red," Georgia O'Keefe's "White Rose with Larkspur No. 2," Joseph Stella's "Old Brooklyn Bridge" large, oil on canvas painting, Pablo Picasso's sculpture, and his "The Bull" series completed in 1945 and 1946.  

Also below are two of Jackson Pollock's incredible paintings, along with a close up shot of his drip-work, splattering, etc.  and lastly, I've included a piece by Charles Sheeler titled "On a Shaker Theme" and an incredible work of art by Stuart Davis, "Apples and Jug" where he takes the traditional still-life and transforms it into his modernist universe, with elements of cubism and even of advertising imagery.
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Charles Sheeler, "On a Shaker Theme" Oil on Canvas 1956
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Stuart Davis, "Apples and Jug" Oil on Composition Board, 1923
Contemporary Art
In the Contemporary Art galleries, two pieces struck me on this visit.  One is Carmen Herrera's, "Blanco y Verde (#1)", Acrylic on Canvas.  Originally from Havana, Cuba, Herrera studied painting in New York.  The simplicity of the forms here was really striking.  I love the exactness of her straight lines, and her minimal use of color.  We don't know if there is a background or a foreground, and we almost lose our-self within the painting completely.  Carmen Herrera recently had a retrospective exhibit of her work a the Whitney Museum of American Art a few months ago.
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Andy Warhol's beautiful and dark statement with his silkscreen on two canvas panels called, "Red Disaster."  I've included a close up, so the image that is reproduced multiple times on the right canvas panel is clear.  You will see that it is a photograph of an electric chair at New York's Sing Sing Prison, that was originally published in newspapers around the time of the Cold War and accusations of treason against people at that time.  His repetition is often accredited to his feeling that people spend their lives seeing things, but not really observing them.  ​
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Memory Unearthed:  The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross
This powerful exhibit recently opened in March and will be on view through July 30, 2017.

“Memory Unearthed” is a very moving exhibit that provides a rare glimpse of life during the Holocaust.  Holocaust Survivor, Henryk Ross took this incredible display of photographs of life inside the Lodz Ghetto from 1940 to 1944.

Henryk Ross was confined to the Lodz ghetto in 1940 and enlisted by the Nazi regime as a bureaucratic photographer taking photos for Jewish identification cards, for propaganda materials, etc. Secretly, Henryk Ross documented the horrible living conditions and persecution of the Jews under the Nazis.   Ross his the photos and negatives before the last of the Jews were sent from the ghetto to the Auschwitz and Chelmno death camps. The photos seen in this exhibit survived because Ross buried the photos and negatives hoping to provide a historical record of the persecution of the Jews.
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All the photos were very powerful to see.  However, there was one piece of artwork that I found completely incredible and breathtaking from an artistic perspective.  I've included the photo below.  It is actually a modern print from an original 35mm negative, depicting Ghetto police escorting residents for deportation.  The image itself and the unfortunate and horrifying circumstances in the photo are very compelling.  But beyond the face value of what is happening in the photo, you can see that the negative is partially destroyed, burned, or deteriorating.  From one perspective, the visual piece of artwork is quite beautiful and striking.  And from another perspective, it is quite ugly, off-putting, sad, and even symbolic.  ​ This exhibit helps us Never Forget the horrors of the Holocaust and its victims of persecution and death.
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Overall, this was an incredible visit to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.  With every visit, there are new things to see, experience, learn, and explore.
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  • Gallery
  • About The Artist
    • Artist Statement
    • Exhibitions
    • In The News
    • Commissioned Art
  • Public Art
    • Rockefeller Center Flag Project
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