Video: Umbrellas and butterflies in Manhattan. Installation by Victor Matthews
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Several years ago, visitors to New York's Battery Park witnessed an amazing sight: umbrellas with images of huge butterflies were placed on the lawns. The original installation, titled Beyond Metamorphosis, commemorates the victims of September 11, 2001, and was conceived and brought to life by artist Victor Matthews.
To create the installation, Victor Matthews needed almost three thousand umbrellas. On each of them, the artist painted an image of a monarch butterfly: it's hard to even imagine how much time, effort and patience the author needed. Then the umbrellas were placed at a distance of 70 cm from each other in a checkerboard pattern. This project has become one of the largest public art installations ever held in Battery Park.
“This work explores the issues of transformation, migration and regeneration,” says Victor Matthews. "Butterflies do a spiritual act, reminding us of a life that never ends and a spirit that never dies." Monarch butterflies fly thousands of kilometers each year, migrating to Mexico, where they reproduce, die and return.
The audience's reaction to the installation turned out to be rather ambiguous. Some expressed their delight, others called her "stupid, like all great art" and said that it would be better for them to sit on the lawn instead of contemplating the umbrellas placed on it.
Victor Matthews was born in New York in 1963. He declared himself as an artist in the mid-80s of the last century. To date, his works have been shown at numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including the 48th Venice Biennale; the author's paintings are in the permanent collections of museums in Amsterdam, New York, Venice, Cologne, as well as in private collections.
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