Outlooks: Virginia Overton

May 3 – November 9, 2014

  • Outlooks: Virginia Overton, May 3 – November 9, 2014

In a Storm King hay field, artist Virginia Overton has designed a sculptural installation that is simultaneously sweeping and delicate in scale. Created out of four-inch-diameter brass tubing, the work glides above the earth across the field’s five-hundred-foot width. Storm King’s landscape helped to determine the parameters of this untitled work: the field’s length dictated that of the installation, and the work echoes the contour of the field as it slopes from west to east. Overton visited Storm King several times—through every season—as she conceived the work. The period of its exhibition, May through November, bears witness to many changes in climate, and by design, the duration of the installation will affect the piece. The tube will slowly form a patina, and its color will also reflect its natural surroundings as the seasons shift from early spring, to summer, to deep autumn. In part, the work functions as a drawing in space. When compared to the grand scale of the landscape around it, the brass tube becomes a slight gesture. The line of the work is formally elegant, but its expansive span also implies that the line is meant to be seen from afar, in full, perhaps from atop one of Storm King’s many vistas; the piece also seems to invite an aerial viewpoint.