The British artist Tracey Emin has created a new sculpture titled Roman Standard (2013) which will be unveiled for Frieze week on May 10 and on view to September 8, at Petrosino Square, Spring and Lafayette Streets in New York. Roman Standard features a single bronze bird perched on top of a thirteen-foot pole that rises over the park.
Emin describes the sculpture, often mistaken as a real bird, as a symbol of “hope, faith and spirituality” that acts as a point of contemplation. It serves as a reinterpretation of the militaristic symbols of traditional Roman Standards by demonstrating a seemingly insignificant creature’s strengths in its embodiment of height, air and light. “Most public sculptures are a symbol of power which I find oppressive and dark,” said Emin. “I wanted something that had a magic and an alchemy, something which would appear and disappear and not dominate.”
“We are thrilled to showcase Tracey Emin’s work in New York,” said Art Production Fund Cofounders Yvonne Force Villareal and Doreen Remen. “In Roman Standard Emin poignantly conveys that successful works of public art do not need to be monumental in order to inspire their surroundings.”
Roman Standard was Emin’s first public art project, commissioned in 2005 by the BBC as part of its contribution to the art05 festival and Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008, and serves as a tribute to the city’s famous symbol, the Liver Bird. The installation in Petrosino Square marks the artist’s second public project in New York following her hugely successful debut in Times Square this past February, as part of Midnight Moment organized by s[edition], the Times Square Advertising Coalition, and Times Square Art.
Concurrently, Lehmann Maupin will present Tracey Emin: I Followed You To The Sun, a two-part exhibition featuring over 100 new works, including a series of new bronze sculptures, paintings and drawings, embroideries and a short film, on view from May 2 to June 22, 2013 at both of its New York galleries. The sprawling show covers all aspects of Emin’s creative output and continues to reveal her most intimate internal narratives. In December 2013, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami will host Emin’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States.
Regarded as one of the world’s most significant contemporary artists, Tracey Emin is internationally recognized for her blunt and revealing style, which elicits a broad range of emotions from shock to empathy to self-reflection. Drawing on personal experiences, Emin often reveals emotional situations with brutal honesty and poetic humor in a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, embroidery, neon, installation, sculpture, and film.
Tracey Emin (b. 1963) is based in London, England. She represented Britain in 2007 at the Venice Biennale and her work has appeared in prestigious collections of The Royal College of Art, London; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Tate Britain, London; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In recent years Emin has been the subject of a number of retrospective museum exhibitions around the world, including a major solo show at the Museo de Arte Latino Americano de Buenos Aires; a solo exhibition at Turner Contemporary in her hometown of Margate (2012); and Tracey Emin: 20 Years, the artist’s first retrospective which originated at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2008), before traveling to the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga (2008) and the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2009). In May 2011, Emin had a major solo exhibition at the Hayward, London. In January 2013, HRH Queen Elizabeth II appointed Emin a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts.
Art Production Fund (APF) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to commissioning and producing ambitious public art projects, reaching new audiences and expanding awareness through contemporary art. Recent projects include: After Hours: Murals on The Bowery, NYC, 2011; David Brooks, Desert Rooftops, NYC, 2011; Josephine Meckseper, Manhattan Oil Project, NYC, 2012; Kiki Smith, Chorus, NYC, 2012; Yoko Ono, Imagine Peace Times Square, NYC, 2012; Yvette Mattern, Global Rainbow After The Storm, NYC, 2012; Ryan McGinley, Taxi TV, NYC, 2013; Tony Smith, One-Two-Three, NYC, 2013.