To celebrate International Sculpture Day, we’re highlighting some of the great sculptures that are currently on view at the Ogden Museum!

James Surls, ,Me, Knife, Diamond and Flower, 2000, Cast bronze and stainless steel, On loan from the Helis Foundation

Me, Knife, Diamond and Flower

This large-scale sculpture by Texas artist James Surls stands tall in front of the Museum to welcome visitors and passerbys. Surls’ sculpture combines elements of nature, simplified facial features, geometric shapes and two different metals to create this complex work. Surls grew up surrounded by woods in East Texas where his carpenter father taught him how to create from the trees around them. Now as an artist, Surls creates from the woods by him, choosing a tree that he believes matches the idea of the sculpture.

Margarita Cabrera, Bicicleta Verde (Green), 2006, Vinyl, Foam, String, and Wire, Courtesy of the artist and Talley Dunn Gallery

Bicicleta Verde (Green)

Bicicletas Verde was created by Margarita Cabrera, another Texas-based artist. The dangling threads show the presence of the physical labor that was used to create this sculpture and the everyday manufactured goods they represent. The vinyl adds an anthropomorphic quality to the work, referencing the harsh nature of workers’ realities. Labor is one of the many issues Cabrera tackles in her work, along with immigration, cultural identity, violence, inclusivity and empowerment. Cabrera’s work is on view now in her self-titled exhibition presented by the Center for Southern Craft & Design.

Dusti Bongé, City, Mixed media construction, Collection of Paul Bongé

City

Abstract expressionist painter Dusti Bongé worked outside of her media with this sculpture, City. Bongé imbues this sculpture with some similar characteristics from 2D work, especially her more cubist styles, with the layering of geometric shapes and lines. Instead of altering the tones through color, the shadows that the shapes and light place on each other adds additional range of tone, despite including only three painted colors. Bongé is widely considered to be the first abstract expressionist in Mississippi. More of her work is on view through September 8, 2019 in the exhibition Piercing the Inner Wall: the Art of Dusti Bongé.

Fritz Bultman, Good News I, 1963, Bronze with steel supports, On loan from The Helis Foundation

Good News I

Good News I by Fritz Bultman stems out from a bed of rocks on the Ogden Museum’s fifth floor terrace. With the steel supports, the large expressive abstract lines of thick bronze bend around in the sky. The forms reflect Bultman’s abstract expressionist style developed in its hub of New York. There, Bultman studied under Hans Hoffman and was one of the signatories of the historic letter that earned the abstract expressionists the name of the “Irascibles.”

Happy International Sculpture Day from the O!