Alice Aycock

New York, Manhattan, 52^nd – 57^th Street on Park Avenue, Park Avenue Paper Chase, 2014

Pennsylvania-born Alice Aycock made her name in the 1970s for hybrids of sculpture and architecture. Hoop-La is an outstanding example of Aycock’s recent work and is one of seven monumental sculptures in painted aluminium commissioned for New York's Park Avenue last year. The cyclonic structure of Hoop-Lais characteristic of Aycock’s recent work.

Aycock’s use of shinier surfaces in works such as Hoop-La communicates the virtual, even cosmic energy of technological innovation, and, in the case of the Paper Chase project as a whole, not only encapsulates the dynamism of New York, but contributes to it. Like Aycock’s high profile 1998 installation Star Sifter for Terminal 1 T JFK airport, Hoop-La seems, in the artist’s own words, to invite ‘the public to become aware of the power and possibilities inherent in their surroundings’.

Paper Chase reflexively describes this creative progression; as Aycock explains, ‘the notion is that there is this big wind that moves up and down the avenue, and that it makes the forms or blows the forms and leaves it in its wake’. As the culmination of Aycock’s fascination with time, the artist’s mobilisation of her personal past is apt. Childhood dreams of flying and fears of formless monsters inspired these cycling, hyper-energetic forms that reflexively describe her constant, bold transformation as an artist, as well as the energy of a cosmopolitan capital.

Following international acclaim for her large sculpture at documenta 6 in Germany, Aycock has exhibited works around the world, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Serpentine, London, alongside group exhibitions including the Whitney Biennials and the Venice Biennale (1978, 1980, 1982). Her work is displayed throughout the US and the third comprehensive retrospective of Aycock’s work was held at the Grey Art Gallery of New York University and the new Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York in 2013.