The Broadway Mall Association Presents
Kathy Ruttenberg on Broadway: in dreams awake
Six Monumental Sculptures to be Installed on Broadway
Opening April 27, 2018
Kathy Ruttenberg, Fish Bowl (rendering), 2018, cast silicon bronze, polychrome patina, ceramic,
acrylic, cast polyurethane resin, cast concrete, LED lighting. Photo by Fionn Reilly
On April 27, 2018, a fairytale dream will come true
on Broadway. The spectacular production is not the latest star-studded musical theater
blockbuster. Instead, the performers in this show are six large-scale, figural sculptures
by Kathy Ruttenberg, an internationally known artist who makes her Broadway debut as
a new kind of story-telling impresario. The installation, titled Kathy Ruttenberg on
Broadway: in dreams awake, will appear on the Broadway malls, the tree-lined green
way between 64th and 157th Streets in Manhattan and will be on view through February
2019. The artist’s first major outdoor sculpture installation is presented by the Broadway
Mall Association and organized in cooperation with NYC Parks.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony with the artist, local elected officials, and community
residents will take place on Friday, April 27, 2018, at 11:00 a.m. on Broadway between
71st and 72nd Streets at the south entrance of the West 72nd Street subway station.
Ruttenberg is admired by critics and curators for her fantastical narrative sculptures that
combine human, animal, and plant forms. In the Broadway malls installation, she
explores a broad mix of sculptural media including patinated bronze, glass mosaic,
transparent cast resin, and carefully orchestrated LED lighting. The interaction between
color, form, opacity, transparency, and light itself as an artistic medium highlights the
inherently theatrical nature of the visual storyteller’s art.
Ruttenberg’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries since the early 1980s.
Taken out of the gallery and onto the streets, her characters embrace even greater
significance as they interact with the urban environment. Ruttenberg has painstakingly
studied the sites along Broadway, and her carefully placed polychrome players blur the
lines between dream and reality: a singing tree performs on a pedestal across from
Lincoln Center; a smartly dressed Ms. Mighty Mouse surveys her domain at 79th Street,
perhaps dreaming of the cheese at nearby Zabar’s; at 117th Street/Columbia University
and Barnard College, Ruttenberg proposes an alternative to Atlas carrying the globe on
his shoulders: an acrobatic goddess stands on her head and balances the earth on her
feet, presenting a new view of the world to its future leaders.
The artist explains her merging of flora and fauna as “an urban escape into a rural
wonderland; the pace of the city contrasts with the rhythms of nature raising questions
of what effect this disparity has on the human psyche; man’s relationship to nature is an
underlying concern throughout my work. As the inhabitants of the natural world are
increasingly displaced by urban and suburban sprawl, I find myself using
anthropomorphic fables to return nature’s creatures to our human consciousness.”
Casual passersby will find their day brightened, and more curious viewers will find
dreams brought to reality through the alchemy of Ruttenberg’s art. It was Henry David
Thoreau who said, “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake,” and Ruttenberg’s
sculptural prowess delightfully breaks the boundaries between art, the urban
environment, nature, dream, and reality.
About Kathy Ruttenberg
Born in Chicago, raised in New York City, and now a resident of upstate New York,
Kathy Ruttenberg began her career as a painter and filmmaker after graduating from the
School of Visual Arts in 1981. She was a participant in the East Village art scene,
bringing figurative and narrative art to the fore after a decade of minimalism had
dominated the art scene. She is most recognized for her large-scale ceramic sculptures,
which have been exhibited at the Biennale Internationale de Vallauris, the American
Museum of Ceramic Art, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, Caramoor, the Roger
Williams Botanical Center, and many other venues. Permanent public installations of
Ruttenberg’s site-specific work can be seen at the Tisch Children’s Zoo, New York, NY
and the Mamiraua Sustainable Development Reserve, Brazil.
About the Broadway Mall Association
For over 30 years, the Broadway Mall Association (BMA) has worked to beautify and
maintain the verdant malls in the center of Broadway from 70th Street to 168th Street.
Today, BMA remains committed to the vision of the malls as a beautiful stretch of
greenery uniting the diverse neighborhoods along Broadway. To maintain the 10.6-acre
parkland, BMA oversees the landscape design and the horticulture elements of the
malls, and provides watering and sanitation to supplement services provided by NYC
Parks. Each year, BMA decorates many malls with sparkling, reusable LED lights during
the dark winter months and stages world-class exhibitions of contemporary art, such as
Kathy Ruttenberg on Broadway: in dreams awake. Broadwaymall.org
About Art on the Malls
Art on the Malls is the Broadway Mall Association’s program to enliven the Broadway
malls with contemporary art, which was launched in 2005 with the major exhibition, Tom
Otterness on Broadway. Since then, BMA has exhibited the work of more than 20
internationally recognized artists on the malls, including Joy Brown, Saint Clair Cemin,
Dan Colen, Carole Eisner, Don Gummer, Manolo Valdés, and Peter Woytuk.
About NYC Parks
For over 50 years, NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program has brought contemporary
public artworks to the city’s parks, making New York City one of the world’s largest
open-air galleries. The agency has consistently fostered the creation and installation of
temporary public art in parks throughout the five boroughs. Since 1967, NYC Parks has
collaborated with arts organizations and artists to produce over 2,000 public artworks by
1,300 notable and emerging artists in over 200 parks. For more information about the
program visit www.nyc.gov/parks/art. (212-360-1311)
