Hélio Oiticica, Invenção da cor, Penetrável Magic Square #5, De Luxe, 1977, photo by Eduardo Eckenfels, courtesy of Instituto Inhotim
Near Brumadinho, Brazil, about 60 kilometers from Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais, the Instituto Inhotim is an open-air museum that combines art and nature with site-specific contemporary art in a sprawling landscape of botanical gardens.
In a remote valley of central eastern Nevada, a complex of shaped landmasses and monolithic structures is thought to be the largest sculpture in the world. Composed of rocks, compacted dirt, and concrete, a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, Michael Heizer’s City is a vast work of Land Art.
In 1997, in Cuxhaven, Germany, the British sculptor Antony Gormley installed ANOTHER PLACE, a sculpture comprised of 100 life-sized iron figures, along the coast between the North Sea and the mouth of the Elbe River. The figures were spread 2.5 kilometers down the coast and a kilometer out to sea, facing the horizon and becoming submerged with the tides each day in September and October of that year.
A beautiful new art center opened on a Friday evening last month. 2,000 people attended the opening. The building was designed by a major architecture firm. There’s talk of gentrification. And it’s in Lusanga, Democratic Republic of Congo.
A temporary outdoor sculpture exhibition has opened in the Swiss Alps with installations of six works by Alexander Calder. Presented by Hauser & Wirth and the Calder Foundation, Calder in the Alps takes place in and around the posh resort town of Gstaad.
From June 9 through November 1, the Château de Versailles presents an exhibition of sculptural works by Anish Kapoor. It is the eighth exhibition of contemporary works at Versailles since 2008, and coincides with the tercentenary of the death of Louis XIV.
Anila Quayyum Agha, Intersections (installation view, Grand Rapids Art Museum), 2014; image courtesy of Anila Quayyum Agha
In Michigan’s Grand Rapids Art Museum, Anila Quayyum Agha’s Intersections is installed after being named the winner of ArtPrize 2014. The installation consists of a light source inside a laser-cut wooden cube, casting shadows that evoke Islamic sacred spaces.
Richard Serra, East-West/West-East, image via Qatar Museums Authority
This spring, coinciding with his first major exhibition in the Middle East, American sculptor Richard Serra launched a public art commission in Qatar entitled East-West/West-East. Serra’s large-scale assemblies of sheet metal are famously minimal and massive, and this site-specific work in Qatar is absolutely monolithic.
“The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.”