June 7, 2019
Leonardo Drew Art Exhibit “City in the Grass” Opens in Mad. Sq. Park
Madison Square Park has unveiled its thirty-eighth commissioned public art installation this week with City in the Grass, an interactive cityscape exhibit by Brooklyn-based artist Leonardo Drew.
On display on the Oval Lawn, City in the Grass is described as Drew’s most ambitious work to date: a 100-foot long three-dimensional abstract cityscape in topographical view, rising from a panoramic surface of colored sand. The artist has used the techniques of assemblage and additive collage to create multiple layers of varied materials to sculpt the cityscape. Visitors will experience the installation as though they were giants looking down on the city, or while resting on the lawn, they might envision themselves in the midst of the sculpture.
Madison Square Park’s Executive Director Keats Myer explains the artist’s intent in creating the installation. “Through this monumental, interactive, and visually dynamic work,” she says, “Drew will encourage visitors to consider and celebrate their relationships to the cities they inhabit and explore, and the agency that each individual possesses in their making.”
About Leonardo Drew
Born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Leonardo Drew exhibited a talent and passion for creative work at an early age. A former student at Parsons School of Design and a graduate of The Cooper Union, Drew has developed his own artistic voice in using new materials to create his works while implementing techniques in order to make them resemble found objects.
Over the past several decades, he has enjoyed success with numerous solo exhibitions around the world, and his work can be seen in the permanent collections at museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., to name a few.
City in the Grass will be on public view from June 3-December 15, 2019. Come down to the park and be inspired.