Oscar Tuazon Tree Sculptures Take Root At Brooklyn Bridge Park

By on July 20, 2012 7:05 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, Visual Arts

Three tree-like “sculptures” that, uh, resemble barren dead hardwood, have taken root in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Created by Oscar Tuazon and presented by the Public Art Fund, the towering artworks, curiously titled “People,” are located on Piers 1 and 2 and will be on luminescent display through April 26, 2013.

According to a release, “These hybrid sculptures incorporate both natural materials and industrial building techniques—local trees and cement casting are at the core of each work—and explore the idea of architecture, labor and reinvention.”

In the first work, a tall tree trunk is supported with a minimalist steel triangle that conceals a spring from which water flows. The second is formed by a 10-foot square cast cement cube with a tall tree embedded at its central axis. The third tree trunk anchors a basketball hoop and a handball wall. All allege to function as “both as an icon and a passageway along the pier.”

(Photos: Curbed)

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  • David on Middagh

    Ugly.

    But the handball wall might be useful.

  • Elmer Fudd

    You have to be kidding?

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Way, way over my head.

  • Ellie

    i’m a fan of the artworks

  • Elmer Fudd

    The emperor has no clothes with this one.

  • soulman

    I saw them while walking my dog the other day. She couldn’t pee on them since they were in the grass area, so I did. Just kidding.
    Truly, this exhibit must be some kind of satire on the art world and I say that as a fan of Christo. Reading the pretentious plaques “explaining” the creations is a hoot. What dollar value have the connoisseurs placed on these woodies?

  • ColumbiaBrights

    Wow amazing! Although I do remember seeing a similar installation in a half finished deforestation. Which also featured the rather unique ‘pile of leaves’, ‘random twigs’ and… oh I give up, a tree stump? Really?

  • yoohoo

    Fairly disappointing, that’s all I can say.

  • David on Middagh

    Too bad this sculpture isn’t real:

    http://vincentstahl.com/gallery/viewdesk.php?pic=1005

  • She’s Crafty

    The basketball hoop sculpture is confusing and problematic. If you didn’t know it was “art,” you might try to actually play a game of basketball, but you’d be playing directly in the bike path in an area where there’s not a great sightline in one direction. Someone could get hurt. The placement for this one is not ideal.

  • Andrew Porter

    I may have to buy some spray paint. Atrocious waste of money and placement.

    I want real trees, not concrete ones, in a park.

  • She’s Crafty

    Was just there and let me amend: poor sightline in BOTH directions.

  • Mr. Crusty

    If an artist gets people discussing his work I think he has succeeded.

  • Elmer Fudd

    I think Crusty is a clown. If I pick-up dog poop and throw it at a car, and take a picture of it – is that art? If you say it is disgusting, have I succeeded as an artist? I think you are demeaning all true artists by saying yes.

    If my dog poops on the sidewalk, and I leave it there for people to discuss… is my dog an artist?

  • soulman

    Mr Crusty: if you walked down Montague St. stark naked, people would be undoubtedly discussing your “work”. But would it be art?

  • GHB

    Jeezus, you people are idiots! Mr. Crusty is right.

  • David on Middagh

    But Mr. Crusty’s statement is irrelevant. (Sorry, Mr. Crusty.) The problem here, as Elmer Fudd pointed out, is that getting someone to discuss your work doesn’t make you an artist.

    I for one could do without these limbless Venus de Treelo’s.

  • Wiley E.

    Sad for the community, but the joke is on Regina Myer for approving and funding this project with indirect tax payer money.

  • Mr. Crusty

    Being called a clown by someone who uses the screename Elmer Fudd is special.

    Many great artists and their works were ridiculed and scorned by their contemporaries.

    @soulman said “Mr Crusty: if you walked down Montague St. stark naked, people would be undoubtedly discussing your “work”. But would it be art?”

    I would think so, but then again I am biased.

  • gatornyc

    I’m with GHB and Crusty. As usual most posters just want to complain. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Just because you don’t get it (or wouldn’t pay for it) doesn’t mean its not art. What a world of hurt we would be in if that was the standard.

  • Mr. Crusty

    @Andrew Porter: “I may have to buy some spray paint. Atrocious waste of money and placement.

    Ahhhhh… So Mr. Porter would like to deface and damage art that he doesn’t particularly like. How nice. Perhaps we can have a book burning afterwards to rid us of literature you particularly care for as well.

    Mr. Porter continued, “I want real trees, not concrete ones, in a park.”

    Are they mutually exclusive.

  • Mr. Crusty

    I keep hearing of what a waste of taxpayers money this is. Can anyone back that up with facts? How much money did this cost “taxpayers”? I may be wrong but I believe the Public Art Fund is supported by private contributions. I applaud their efforts and thank them for bringing these art works to the BBP.

    As I said in another thread, the motto of Brooklyn Heights must be that no good deed should go unpunished. I have never seen so many complaints about people trying to do good deeds for the community. An incredible park being created where there was nothing but rusting piers and dilapidated warehouses is viciously attacked on a regular basis because it is not exactly as some individuals demand. A temp pop-up pool which is being enjoyed on a daily basis by many BH residents is an object to complain about because you see we’re “entitled” to an “aquatic center”. And now some free art (and it is art whether you “get it” or not) is a reason to attack the people responsible.

    I don’t know why anyone would want to do anything for this community. I’ve never seen such a gaggle of ungrateful people in my life. Astounding.

  • Elmer Fudd

    Crusty, you are biased and way to full of yourself. Can you afford to take a vacation? It might do you a lot of good.

  • BH’er

    I was a little puzzled by the basketball hoop connected to the handball court/wall

    But I don’t think there will be too many pickup games on the gravel surface that surrounds it

    It’s not exactly Storm King material, but I don’t think it’ll do any harm to the bikers & passers-by

  • Mr. Crusty

    Elmer look at the thread. I had made one comment, “If an artist gets people discussing his work I think he has succeeded.”

    You’re brilliant retort: “I think Crusty is a clown”.

    So you personally attacked me for having an opinion on the purpose of art but I am the one full of myself. Okie dokie.

    BTW, how am I “biased”? Do you know what the word means? How does it relate in this conversation?

  • Mr. Crusty

    @She’s Crafty, I can understand your not liking the sculptures at BBP. Art, after all, is very subjective. But are you REALLY suggesting that the piece will be mistaken for a real basketball court and that a game will break out (on the grass and gravel mind you) posing a hazard to oncoming bicyclist?

    Really?

  • Elmer Fudd

    A clown is a comic (or should be). Your remarks are comical, as are your opinions.

    You are the one guilty of personal attacks (look at the comments). You are so sad in your self-righteousness.

  • GHB

    These comments from the same people who go into MOMA, see the Rothkos or Picassos and say “my kid could do that!”

  • Mr. Crusty

    Philistines

  • David on Middagh

    GHB, that’s not quite true. You brought up Rothko: I have a Rothko-esque painting (from the Plymouth thrift, actually) decorating my apartment. I like it just fine. I would like even better a genuine Rothko, with its complex subtlety of expression, if I could afford such a thing.

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