From a cluster of figures crossing a street, all lost in their own world, to a lone man replacing the lettering on a cinema marquee, sculptor George Segal explored the human condition in an urban atmosphere.
There's plenty more city life in his latest exhibition, "George Segal: Street Scenes" It's the first Segal exhibition to focus on his street scenes and features 16 of his works from the early 1960s through the end of his career before his death in 2000.
"A lot of the scenes are scenes from everyday life we tend to overlook," said acting curator Jed Morse.
|
|
Other works - most in plaster, some in bronze - feature giant photographs as a backdrop. In "Dumpster," a figure walks past a photograph of an overflowing trash bin against a wall - both covered with graffiti.
"He has kind of frozen them in time and created these poignant narratives of everyday life," Morse said.
Segal, who died at age 75, was born in New York and grew up there. He then spent most of his adult life in the New Jersey countryside, returning to the city often for work.
"He has that intimate connection with it, but also perspective from the outside," Morse said.
In "Bus Passengers," six figures are packed onto a bus - seemingly oblivious to each other.
"Again, you get that sense of urban density. People being close together but in their own worlds," he said.
Morse said that many of the works from the 1980s focus on tough economic times, including "The Homeless" from 1989, which! has one figure lying over a grate and another crouching against the w all nearby.
The exhibit was organized by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, Wisconsin, where it premiered. The exhibit ends April 5 at the Nasher and will then go to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City from May 9 to Aug. 2, and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, from Sept. 8 through Dec. 6.
"We really wanted an exhibition that would show a range of the work that he did based on city scenes," said Stephen Fleischman, director of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
Fleischman, who organized the traveling show along with the museum's curator of exhibitions, said it seemed like a good time for a fresh look at Segal's works.
"He found a way of making these scenes universal," said Fleischman, who maintains that there's a cohesiveness to the way Segal's works evolved over time.
Said Morse: "He really plumbs the psychological depths of what it means to be human in the city."
___
On the Net:
www.nashersculpturecenter.org
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
