Description
Forrest Myers was the youngest founding member of the Park Place Gallery, an artist-run organization that operated for a few years in lower Manhattan beginning in 1965. The artists of the Park Place Group--ten painters and sculptors including David Novros, Ed Ruda, and Robert Grosvenor--shared common concerns although their work varied in appearance. As opposed to Minimalists such as Donald Judd, the Park Place sculptors often employed dramatic cantilevers, and the heroic scale of their pieces recalled the work of the first generation of New York School artists.
Myers was born in Long Beach, California, in 1941. He attended the California School of Fine Arts from 1959 to 1961 and moved to New York City the next year. He began exhibiting his work at the age of twenty-four at the Park Place Gallery and almost immediately earned a favorable response from critics. Acknowledging a range of influences that included Alexander Calder, Mark di Suvero, and Buckminster Fuller, Myers pursued several artistic directions. He used many different materials including wood, steel, aluminum, and various colored plastics, often combining them in brightly colored, eccentric compositions. Myers's sculptures have been described as having "a tomorrow, out-of-space, science-fiction look."(1) In 1968 and 1969 Myers designed pieces to reach toward "outer space," using brilliant lights projected into the sky and smoke trails of rockets. Perhaps his best-known works, however, are his large, open, linear constructions of geometric shapes using industrial materials.
Details
- Work Date:
- 1969-70
- Location:
- West Plaza
- Dimensions:
- 23'-8" x 21'-6" x 27'-1"
- Medium:
- cor-ten and stainless steel