Description
George Segal was fascinated by people, what they did, and how they interacted, and through his sculpture, he explored the subtle stances and gestures that revealed both the individuality and the common humanity of his models. Segal used his friends and family as models, making direct casts of their bodies, which were protected only by Vaseline and Saran Wrap. The cast was produced in sections from lengths of cloth dipped in hydrostone, a resilient plaster used in industrial casts. After the individual sections were removed from the model, they were reassembled, a laborious and time-consuming task. The Billboard is an example of what Segal called his "work pieces," in which he investigates various occupations. The Billboard manifests, as does much of Segal's sculpture, an ambiguous relationship to reality and illusion. A real scaffolding provides the setting for the figure, which was cast from a live model. The sign painter, however, is completely white and, frozen in the act of painting the letter O, possesses an unreal, even mysterious quality.
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Details
- Work Date:
- 1966
- Location:
- Corning Tower Plaza Lobby
- Dimensions:
- 16'-0" x 9'-11" x 2'-8"
- Medium:
- Plaster, wood, metal, and rope