Two large-scale works by American sculptor Alice Aycock are on display in the Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden at the Georgia Museum of Art.
“Waltzing Matilda” and “Twin Vortexes” originally were part of Park Avenue Paper Chase, Aycock’s outdoor exhibition on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Inspired by the wind and the frenetic energy of city life, these two sculptures will remain on display at UGA until September.
Annelies Mondi, the museum’s deputy director who organized the exhibition, said these sculptures “allude to other topics often found in Aycock’s work, such as magic and fantasy in contrast with science and engineering. Her seemingly whimsical works belie the intricate planning and skill necessary to create these pieces. References to nature and industry intermingle as viewers walk around each sculpture sensing the whirling, organic shapes made from aluminum and fiberglass.”
Born in Pennsylvania, Aycock trained as a sculptor with Robert Morris at Hunter College in New York. She often has focused on creating public art installations, from her early land art in the 1970s to these current complex objects made of fiberglass and aluminum. She has work in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery as well as on view in cities across the U.S.
The Willson Sculpture Garden is devoted to the work of women sculptors and features rotating exhibitions.
In addition to being popular Instagram subjects, the sculptures are the basis for the studio project Athens-Clarke County fifth-graders are completing this year when they tour the museum. The tours are part of Experience UGA, a partnership between the Clarke County School District and the university that aims to bring each Clarke County student to campus every year. The fifth-graders learn about the process through which Aycock created the sculpture, watch a film about her work, tour the exhibition in the garden and then make their own small sculptures out of paper to take home.
Aycock will speak at the museum Feb. 11 at 5:30 p.m. The lecture will be open free to the public.
