Count on the Rye Arts Center to think outside the gallery box. The organization that brought you the En Plein Air Paintouts is staging “Beyond Rodin — New Directions in Contemporary Figurative Sculpture”. The exhibit, which opens May 6 at 4 p.m. and runs through June 16, will feature the work of 20 U.S.-based sculptors, who are creating innovative contemporary works built on a foundation of anatomical rigor and classical training.

 

 

Count on the Rye Arts Center to think outside the gallery box. The organization that brought you the En Plein Air Paintouts is staging “Beyond Rodin — New Directions in Contemporary Figurative Sculpture”. The exhibit, which opens May 6 at 4 p.m. and runs through June 16, will feature the work of 20 U.S.-based sculptors, who are creating innovative contemporary works built on a foundation of anatomical rigor and classical training.

 

Rye sculptor Bob Clyatt was asked to curate the show, and assembled the artists. “For decades, the human figure was considered off-limits for sculptors — it was kitsch, commercial art, or simply hopelessly old-fashioned — not real contemporary art,” he said. “But in the last five or ten years, we’ve turned a corner and are seeing work that is both classically rooted and yet undeniably contemporary — something fresh, something audiences are responding strongly to.”

 

The works are made from a variety of materials — bronze, wood, clay, and space-age polymers. Whether hand-modeled or computer-designed and then printed into solid form with a 3-D scanner, the works are arresting and exciting.

 

And the excitement doesn’t stop there. In May, additional outdoor works by Brooklyn artists Joan Benefial and Jeremy Leichman (figurationstudio.com) will be installed throughout downtown Rye. The couple’s “Hudson River Pilings Project” was shown recently in Los Angeles and in New York’s Fashion District. A dozen or more of their glowing, translucent orange figures set atop 8-foot wooden poles will be installed in Rye’s recently widened sidewalk spaces on Purchase Street and on the Village Green.