October 24, 2024
The Storm King Art Center is a 500 acre outdoor museum in New York’s Hudson Valley. It is reminiscent of Gibbs Farm in New Zealand with its massive sculptures dotted within beautiful countryside. In fact, we noticed a number of works by the same sculptors that we saw at Gibbs Farm, including works by Maya Lin and Andy Goldsworthy. Here are some of the sculptures we saw along the way.
There is an interesting story about the following sculpture, Adam, by Alexander Liberman. It started out life in Washington DC where it was located outside the Corcoran Gallery. The Corcoran is located near the White House and at some stage the sculpture caught the interest of then President Richard Nixon. In fact, he was so outraged by the sculpture that he demanded it be relocated to the less visible nearby Haynes Point. It stayed there safely away from Nixon’s disapproving eyes until being relocated to Storm King a few years later.
And finally, one of the sculptures, actually raced in the America’s Cup. Following plans by American pop artist, Roy Lichtenstein, students from the Rhode Island School of Design painted the boat, Young America, which went on to race in the 1995 America’s Cup. As a boat, it looked better than it sailed, and was swept by New Zealand’s Black Magic in five races, who took the Cup away from the United States for only the second time in 144 years. After retiring from competition, it was donated to Storm King.
Mal and Lauren 