Harvard Enterprise College Broadcasts New Works to Public Artwork Exhibition Supported by C. Ludens Ringnes Sculpture Assortment – Information

By jimadmin Last updated Sep 22, 2021

BOSTON – Four sculptures were installed on the Harvard Business School (HBS) campus in Boston as part of their ongoing contemporary sculpture program, which began in April 2016. A sculpture by Yinka Shonibare CBE RA is a new addition to the C. Ludens Ringnes Sculpture Collection, as well as a sculpture by Melvin Edwards and two works by Thaddeus Mosley are on loan to the school for the 2021-2022 exhibition. They join sculptures by Mary Frank, Jaume Plensa, John Safer and Joel Shapiro in the school’s permanent collection.

“We’re excited to have works by these artists here on campus,” said Melissa Renn, collections manager for the HBS Art and Artifacts Collection. “Your dynamic sculptures on Schwartz Common, where our entire community intersects, and near the Executive Education Center that attracts so many international attendees, enliven our outdoor spaces. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the community to look at works of art from around the world. “

These installations are made possible by the generosity of artists and galleries including Alexander Gray Associates, Stephen Friedman Gallery, James Cohan Gallery, and Karma, and by the C. Ludens Ringnes Sculpture Collection, which supports Harvard Business School’s contemporary sculpture exhibition.

“We are very grateful to Christian Ringnes (MBA 1981) for his generous donation, with which the collection was founded in 2018,” said Gabe Handel, deputy dean for administrative and educational matters. “With this support, we were not only able to make long-term investments, but also start well thought-out temporary exhibitions that enhance the campus experience for everyone, regardless of whether they are members of our shared apartment or visitors from near and far. These wonderful installations create a feeling of amazement, highlight important topics, stimulate discussions, strengthen appreciation for the arts and make the campus more appealing overall. “

For more information on the collection, visit the HBS School of Contemporary Art website, which has a map of sculptures currently on display outdoors on the HBS campus.

This year’s installation includes the following works:

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, Wind Sculpture (SG) V, 2019, stainless steel fitting with hand-painted, glass fiber reinforced polyester casting, 275 1/2 × 100 × 78 5/8 inches. C. Ludens Ringnes Sculpture Collection, Harvard Business School © 2021 Yinka Shonibare CBE. All rights reserved, DACS / ARS, NY 2021

Location: Executive Education Lawn

Born in London in 1962, Yinka Shonibare moved to Lagos, Nigeria, at the age of three. He returned to the UK to study fine arts at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London and Goldsmiths University of London, where he received his MFA. Shonibare’s work examines the interrelationships between African and European economic and political histories, colonialism, post-colonialism and globalization. Much of his work uses brightly colored Dutch wax batik fabrics inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and then sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a symbol of African identity and independence. As Shonibare said, “Given the history of fabrics, I wanted to evoke this connection between Asia, Africa and Europe – and of course the diaspora in the United States.”

Wind Sculpture (SG) V was acquired by Harvard Business School for the C. Ludens Ringnes Sculpture Collection in 2021. In this work Shonibare uses Dutch wax textiles to visualize the idea of trapping the volume of the wind. The monumental, hand-painted, 22-meter-high sculpture made of industrial materials is based on photographs of wind blown into the actual batik fabrics. Shonibare expressed his goal with the Wind Sculpture series: “I wanted to defy gravity. To make something that actually looks soft, but is made of hard materials like fiberglass and metal. ”Wind Sculpture (SG) V was previously installed on Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston, and other sculptures in the series have been in locations around the world installed including Trafalgar Square, London; Central Park, New York; Ndubuisi Canoe Park, Lagos, Nigeria; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC; and Davidson College, North Carolina.

Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2004, Shonibare was also represented at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. In 2013 he was elected Royal Academician (RA) and in 2019 Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). His sculptures are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Moderna-Museet, Stockholm; National Gallery of Art of Canada, Ottawa; Tate Collection, London; and VandenBroek Foundation, Netherlands. He is represented by the James Cohan Gallery in New York and the Stephen Friedman Gallery in London.

Melvin Edwards, Searching for the Word, 1989/2019, stainless steel, 72 × 116 × 59 in. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York, and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. © 2021 Melvin Edwards / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Location: Schwartz Common

Born in Houston in 1937, Melvin Edwards moved to New York in 1967. In 1970 he was the first African American sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art and in 1978 a retrospective at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Best known for his Lynch Fragments – small abstract sculptures shaped differently from tools, chains, railroad spikes, and scrap steel – Edwards works in a variety of media, from barbed wire installations to large-format painted steel sculptures. His powerful and moving sculptures deal with history and politics and explore topics such as violence, injustice, struggle and civil rights.

Searching for the Word is based on an earlier 1989 maquette that Edwards created for the New York Governor’s Arts Awards and is reminiscent of his other public sculptures from the same period, such as Southern Sunrise (1983) and Breaking of the Chains (1995). These works, composed of stainless steel shapes and curvilinear shapes, are ideally viewed in rounds, because as Edwards describes: a different visual experience from every perspective of the piece. ”For Edwards, public sculptures are also interventions that can change public space and stimulate action. As he wrote in his 1971 statement “Notes on Black Art”: “We have to create works that use our lives and our emotions as a basis for existence. The work can either be in the form of giving and using ideas, themes and symbols for radical change, or the works can be of such large physical scale and in the right places to make real change. ”

Edwards’ work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem; and Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. Edwards taught at Rutgers University from 1972 to 2002 and received an honorary doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston in 2014. He is represented by Alexander Gray Associates, New York, and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.

Location: Schwartz Common

Self-taught artist Thaddeus Mosley was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1926. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the US Navy. He studied English and journalism at the University of Pittsburgh and graduated in 1950. Mosley worked for the US Postal Service for 40 years and wrote for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the leading black newspapers in the country. Mosley began making sculpture in the 1950s and had his first solo exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in 1968. Mosley’s carved abstractions, or “sculptural improvisations” as he calls them, show the influence of jazz on his artistic process. He often listens to music while modeling. “My woods and stones and I develop themes together,” says Mosley.

At the age of 95, Mosley continued to work six hours a day in his studio. Illusory Progression and Rhizogenic Rhythms were commissioned for the 2020 Frieze Sculpture exhibition at Rockefeller Center in New York. Carved from salvaged wood and then cast in bronze, these biomorphic sculptures interact playfully with each other and with their surroundings. Mosley’s inventive works not only push the boundaries of the medium, but also deal with the history of sculpture. As the artist has described: “One of the most important aspects of my own work is the interplay of different segments. By [sculptor Isamu] Noguchi, I have set myself the goal of a piece of work that floats or is easily unbalanced. “

Mosley has received numerous commissions over the years, including a public sculpture for Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority in 1978. He was an officer in the Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors and a board member of the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. Mosley’s work has been exhibited and purchased by major museums and can be found in many public collections, including the Mattress Factory Museum, Martin Luther King Jr. Reading and Cultural Center, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, all in Pittsburgh; Chicago Art Institute; Atlanta High Art Museum; and Brooklyn Museum. He is represented by Karma, New York.