This Statue Wants to You Look to the Skies

New York is already overloaded with statues, but it’s about to get a new one that it’s unlikely passersby will be able to miss. Next month through July 2016, Park Avenue will be home to Tom Friedman’s “Looking Up,” a striking piece that manages to feel full of whimsy and naivety despite its composition—it’s made of stainless steel—and scale—the sculpture is fully 33ft tall.

According to Friedman’s rep and Director at Luhring Augustine, Lauren Wittels,  “Looking Up” will provide New Yorkers with "a center of respite and contemplation in the midst of an exceptionally busy and hectic part of town." The piece is currently installed at The Contemporary Austin, but New York is getting its own edition of the sculpture. Though we're all seeing the same sky, the act of looking up means different things in different places. For the past fourteen years or so, New Yorkers have tended to look up to the sky with more anxiety and fear than wonder, but perhaps this piece may help us return to the carefree sky-gazing of pre-9/11 days.

The work is both abstractly humanoid in form and startling human in effect. He’s 6 times the size of most people, and yet he gazes up into the sky with just the same awe that we do. And especially striking is that though the work itself is gigantic and undeniably eye-catching, the figure's pose encourages us not to focus on him but past him, and into the universe above.

For more information on "Looking Up,"  click here.

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