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The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Quite an upgrade from our porta-potties!' Storm King sculpture park's sublime $53m rebirth
Unless they have been signed by a mischievous surrealist, it is not often that toilets qualify as works of art. But at the Storm King Art Center, an outdoor sculpture park that rolls across 200 edenic hectares of New York's Hudson Valley, visitors are now treated to a sublime restroom experience worthy of the spectacular sculptures on show. 'It's quite an upgrade from our porta-potties,' says Nora Lawrence, director of the centre, which has just reopened after a $53m (£39.7m) expansion. She is standing outside the new loos, housed in a sleek wooden pavilion that opens out on to the woodland landscape, framing views of the red maple swamp beyond. A new ticket office stands across a tree-lined 'outdoor lobby', while elegant lampposts line the route to an open-air welcome pavilion, sheltering lockers and phone charging points. Storm King had none of these things before. Founded in 1960, on a ravaged landscape of gravel pits left by neighbouring highway construction, the sculpture park never had the facilities you would expect from such a popular visitor attraction, which draws crowds of 200,000 each year. Named after a local mountain, the art centre began as a small museum of local landscape paintings, housed in a 1930s Normandy-style chateau on a hill here in Mountainville, surrounded by 23 acres. Its founders, Ralph E Ogden, and his son-in-law, H Peter Stern, who co-ran the family business manufacturing steel bolts, soon acquired a taste for outsized sculpture, and, as a consequence, an appetite for more land. Their holdings eventually grew to include 800 hectares of the adjacent Schunnemunk mountain – which Ogden bought to preserve the woodland backdrop, then donated to become a state park. Storm King now boasts one of the world's greatest collections of outdoor sculpture, with more than 100 works by 20th-century greats, but it has always lacked electricity, piped water, and most of the other hallmarks of civilisation. Alexander Calder's 17-metre tall The Arch stands in the middle of a meadow like some prized fowl, flaring out its curved black limbs with haughty pride. Mark di Suvero's trio of colossal steel structures march across the hills, rising on the horizon like abandoned oil derricks, mineshaft headframes or rusting contraptions once used to sculpt the land. Isamu Noguchi's 40-tonne granite peach nestles in a woodland clearing nearby, looking positively modest in comparison, while Andy Goldsworthy's drystone wall winds its way for 700 metres between the trees. But in between admiring these wonders, visitors were treated to the delights of portable plastic toilets and crowded parking lots. In true North American fashion, Storm King had a lot of asphalt. Swathes of parking and access roads sliced across the pristine meadows, and muscled into the foreground of the striking steel sculptures, undermining the intention of experiencing art against a backdrop of pure nature. 'The primary visitor experience was sitting in a long line of traffic and finding somewhere to park your car,' says Claire Weisz of WXY Studio, the architects that have led the project, with Irish firm Heneghan Peng, since 2017. 'We've tried to let the landscape take over again.' Working with New England landscape practice Reed Hilderbrand, and London firm Gustafson Porter + Bowman, the team have torn up over two hectares of asphalt, creating new fields for the display of art, and planted more than 650 trees and shrubs. They have opened up a previously culverted stream, revealing 100 metres of babbling brook, and restored the wetland landscape with sour gum, sweetgum and flowering dogwood, promising a ravishing show of scarlet foliage come the autumn. With much of the tarmac swept away, the colossal outdoor works shine like never before so the new architectural interventions take a back seat, letting the landscape be the real star of the show. Visitors arrive at the newly concentrated 580-space parking lot, where an elegant timber ticket office has been deftly tacked on to the end of a 19th-century stone cottage, shaded by a big projecting canopy. 'It replaces a 1950s garage extension,' says Róisín Heneghan, 'so we made the canopy look like a big open garage door, in a nod to the American garage sale tradition.' The outdoor lobby, framed by tall, shading sweetgum trees, leads to the new bathroom block, where top-lit wooden cubicles snake in a subtle S-curve, crowned with a floating roof that shelters a long open-air concrete sink. The roof appears to be supported by a row of swivelling wooden shutters, which can be closed in the cooler months, or swung open to connect you directly with the wooded wetland beyond. The architects say they were inspired by the outdoor washbasins of Japanese temples, and there is a similar sense of ritual ablution here, a spiritual cleansing in preparation for the aesthetic revelations that await. For once, the American term is fitting: these are restrooms where you might indeed want to rest awhile, take in the view, and enjoy the aroma of the allspice shrubs, planted, says Beka Sturges of Reed Hilderbrand, 'as a celebration of sanitation'. Sturges says her firm is often accused of being too deferential, but here that's exactly what was needed. Their work is almost invisible: few visitors will remember the previous nightmare of car parks, or realise that a long allée of dying maples has been replaced with more resilient tupelo trees, or that new ground-cover and perennials were selected for their climate resilience. 'We've tried to interlace a few southern species, where this would be the northern edge of their historic range,' says Sturges, 'just to try to get ahead of the terrifying change to climate.' There has also been a lot of work behind the scenes, which most visitors will never see. A new southern logistics entrance means that delivery trucks and maintenance vehicles no longer have to ply their way across the park, disturbing visitors' reverie. It leads to a new conservation, fabrication and maintenance building, conceived as a big black hangar, cut into a sloping hillside. Here, beneath the six-metre high ceilings, cooled by Big Ass Fans, sculptures can be repaired and repainted in a 15-metre long spray booth, before being wheeled out through full-height doors. It means that work that used to have to be outsourced, entailing more truck deliveries, can now be done on site, while the action can be surveyed from mezzanine offices overhead. It is where the big steel buttresses for a new temporary installation by Kevin Beasley were fabricated, which now stand on Tippet's Field – a prominent new space reclaimed from one of the bigger parking lots – forming a 30-metre long theatre arch of found fabrics suspended in resin. Beasley plans to activate the work with performances this summer, the first test of this grassy stage as a canvas for whatever the next generation of artists will dream up. As Lawrence puts it: 'It's quite unusual for an artist to be told, 'Here's a huge landscape, go to town!'' And that's where Storm King's magic lies – now with more potential than ever.
Time Out
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Storm King Art Center opens for the season with $53 million worth of snazzy improvements
This year, the pilgrimage to Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley comes with a major payoff: the beloved 500-acre sculpture park has reopened today, May 7, for the season with a $53 million glow-up. For the first time in its 65-year history, Storm King has completed a sweeping capital project that reimagines how visitors arrive, explore and interact with the art and the landscape. Designed by a powerhouse team of international architects and landscape designers, the renovation includes a brand-new outdoor lobby, welcome pavilions with restrooms and orientation space, electric vehicle charging stations and an intuitive entrance path that brings you straight into the heart of the art-meets-nature experience. There's also a shiny new building dedicated to conservation, fabrication and maintenance—because even monumental sculptures need a tune-up now and then. Storm King executive director Nora Lawrence calls the revamp 'a reimagined Storm King experience,' and she's not kidding. The museum has reclaimed five acres of former parking lots, added more than 650 climate-resilient trees, and created new outdoor spaces that prioritize sustainability and accessibility, all while keeping the focus squarely on awe-inspiring art and wild beauty. The 2025 season kicks off with newly commissioned works from artists Kevin Beasley, Sonia Gomes and Dionne Lee. Beasley's 100-foot-long resin installation 'PROSCENIUM' now commands the former parking lot-turned-Tippet's Field, blending fabric, foliage and found materials into a striking horizon-line sculpture. Gomes, meanwhile, delivers an explosion of color and texture with her first-ever U.S. outdoor installation: a cascade of sculptural forms hanging from trees on Museum Hill. And Lee's cyanotype-coated stones, exposed to the sun and weather, change daily—an organic collaboration between artist and environment. Also on view: new acquisitions from Lee Ufan and Arlene Shechet, plus a full calendar of art-making, music and movement programs. Whether you're a first-timer or a repeat visitor, Storm King's fresh look and season of sensory delights make it more than worth the Metro-North trip.
New York Times
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Natural Landscape That Lends Itself to Art
Traveling down a dirt road through the rolling grasslands of southern Montana, the snow-capped Beartooth Mountains slowly appear in the distance. A metal-roofed, barnlike structure soon comes into view and, beside it, a 25-foot, abstract black steel sculpture by the artist Alexander Calder. On a low-lying stone wall, rusted metal letters spell 'Tippet Rise Art Center.' Here, on 12,500 acres of ranch land north of Yellowstone National Park, the philanthropists Cathy and Peter Halstead have established the world's largest sculpture park. Now entering its 10th season, Tippet Rise is one of the few places on earth where visitors can encounter monumental sculptures in an uninterrupted landscape; take in open-air concerts and poetry readings by world-renowned performers; and traverse the landscape on 15 miles of hiking and biking trails, all while cattle and sheep graze. A new model of sculpture park, Tippet Rise is a place where art enhances the experience of nature. Here, the art is intended to complement rather than dominate the landscape, expressing the Halsteads' vision of a park where visitors become attuned to the natural rhythms of the world and their place within it. The Halsteads were inspired to create Tippet Rise, which opened in 2016, after visiting other outdoor sculpture parks like the Storm King Art Center in upstate New York and the Fondation Maeght on the French Riviera. They sought to create a place where music, art, architecture and landscape could harmonize. 'Peter and I have known each other since we were teenagers, and had very similar passions around art and music,' recalled Ms. Halstead, 77, seated next to Mr. Halstead, 78, on a video call. 'A lot of our early experiences had to do with art and music outdoors.' The Halsteads are also founders of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation and trustees of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation, the namesake arts organization of Ms. Halstead's father. Before founding Tippet Rise, Ms. Halstead served as chairwoman of her father's liquor company, which created Grey Goose vodka. Along with hosting hundreds of musical concerts, film screenings, poetry readings and theater performances over the last decade, the Halsteads have also steadily amassed a permanent collection of 16 monumental sculptures at Tippet Rise by internationally renowned artists, including Ai Weiwei, Richard Serra, Mark di Suvero, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Louise Nevelson and Patrick Dougherty, which are sprinkled across the property. The Halsteads are also artists themselves — Cathy has shown her abstract paintings around the world and Peter is a pianist, photographer and poet. The scale and vastness of Tippet Rise can be overwhelming, as it is slightly smaller in square mileage than the island of Manhattan. 'We are very slow and thoughtful about adding sculptures because we want to maintain the openness of the land,' said Ms. Halstead. 'Our sense is that the land here is sacred.' Moving through Tippet Rise on foot, by bike or on the center's daily shuttle tours during its open season from June through October, a visitor can traverse miles without seeing another person. 'The most important thing about Tippet Rise is the site itself, because that is actually the installation,' said Justin Jakubisn, a 41-year-old Seattle photographer who made his first pilgrimage to the art center in 2024. 'I went excited to see the sculptures but left feeling that Tippet Rise is really about the land.' Over the years, the Halsteads and co-directors Pete and Lindsey Hinmon have developed Tippet Rise in a way that is respectful of the earth. A geothermal system provides heating and cooling to all 17 buildings on campus — which include a music barn, dining barn, library, recording studio and mastering suite, residences for visiting artists and staff offices — while a microgrid with a 237-kilowatt solar array and battery bank helps power them. A collection system gathers 100,000 gallons of snowmelt and rainwater annually, offsetting the center's reliance on aquifer water by 80 percent. 'Our goal is to conserve and preserve this land as much as possible,' said Ms. Hinmon, 44, while recently providing a tour of the property. 'We want to be good neighbors.' Often, Tippet Rise collaborates with artists to create site-specific works that celebrate the landscape. Some of the earliest are a collection of monumental concrete, stone and earth sculptures by the Madrid-based architecture firm Ensamble Studio, which were created on the site by pouring a mix of dirt and cement into molds dug out of the earth and resemble excavated fossils. The largest, 'Domo,' is large enough to provide shade for summer music performances. A more recent installation is Xylem, a permanent pavilion made by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré in 2019 out of local ponderosa and lodgepole pine trees. It was Kéré's first project built in the United States. 'I wanted to create a place where people can sit and be exposed to the quietness and calmness of nature, so that our bodies and souls can be repaired,' said Kéré, 60, of the open-air pavilion, on a recent video call. 'I believe that will give us energy back to think about how we can restore nature and how we can preserve it.' Over the years, the Halsteads and Hinmons have worked to reveal unseen histories of the land at Tippet Rise. In 2017, they began offering geology tours led by the Yellowstone Bighorn Research Association, as the art center sits atop an ice age gravel deposit with many plant and marine life fossils. 'This land has a long story,' Mr. Halstead said. 'And it's a story we want to tell.' In 2024, Tippet Rise permanently installed a glass and granite sculpture called 'The Soil You See…' by the artist Wendy Red Star, who grew up on the nearby Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation. The sculpture, which resembles a giant blood-red fingerprint, is inscribed with the names of 50 Apsáalooke chiefs who were coerced by the U.S. government into using their thumbprints to cede their tribal lands. Today, the center's guided tours incorporate information on the Apsáalooke people. 'Having this sculpture at Tippet Rise allows for a continued presence of Apsáalooke history in a landscape that has long been part of our story,' said Red Star, 44, via email. 'It challenges the idea that this land is just an open, untouched landscape. It is, and always has been, a site of movement, conflict and resilience for the Apsáalooke people.' As the Halsteads look to the future, they intend to continue developing their artist-in-residence program, which brings international musicians and artists to Tippet Rise, just as they extend their work back out to communities near and far through outreach and education programs. Their robust recording program documents concerts and performances on the site for free viewing online, and they are committed to keeping Tippet Rise accessible. Concert tickets, distributed through a public lottery, are $10 each or free to those 21 and under, and entry to the park for hiking and biking is always free, with a reservation. Visitors can also book $10 guided shuttle tours. Ultimately, what the venue offers visitors is something intangible. 'At Tippet Rise, you are the conduit through which the earth speaks to the sky,' Mr. Halstead said. 'Alongside the sculptures, our concerts and performances tap into an ethereal sense of the surroundings. They awaken a sense of awe.'
USA Today
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Best Sculpture Park (2025) - USA TODAY 10Best Readers' Choice Awards
Photo courtesy of Storm King Art Center No. 10: Storm King Art Center - New Windsor, New York The Storm King Art Center occupies 500 acres of rolling hills in the lower Hudson Valley. This scenic setting holds a collection of more than 100 contemporary sculptures by some of the world's top artists. Photo courtesy of Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board No. 9: Minneapolis Sculpture Garden - Minneapolis, Minnesota This free sculpture garden near the Walker Art Center exhibits modern and contemporary works from the museum's collection. Visitors can see more than 60 pieces displayed within the 11 landscaped acres, including the iconic "Spoonbridge and Cherry." Photo courtesy of FatCamera / E+ No. 8: Griffis Sculpture Park - East Otto, New York Located in the Enchanted Mountains of Western New York, Griffis Sculpture Park offers a wonderful fusion of art and nature across 450 acres of meadow and forest. The outdoor gallery features over 250 large-scale sculptures that spring organically from the landscape. One of the largest and oldest sculpture parks in the U.S., the space awaits exploration featuring hiking trails that lead past towering metal figures, whimsical creatures, and abstract forms that change character with the seasons. The park has two sections that are 2 miles apart: the Mill Valley Road section and the Rohr Hill Road section. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Gadbois No. 7: San Juan Islands Sculpture Park - Friday Harbor, Washington Located on the northern tip of San Juan Island, this 20-acre sculpture park melds Pacific Northwest wilderness with the inventive vision of both well-known and emerging artists. The park showcases over 150 diverse sculptures along marked trails — you might spot a colorful Native American totem pole near an abstract piece cut from a single stone. Between resident wandering deer and bald eagles soaring overhead, the wildlife is part of the experience. Photo courtesy of Laumeier Sculpture Park No. 6: Laumeier Sculpture Park - St. Louis, Missouri Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis was founded in 1976 as one of the first dedicated sculpture parks in the United States. The space features more than 70 large-scale works of outdoor sculpture scattered amid the 105-acre area. Entrance to the park is free. Photo courtesy of David Steele No. 5: Grounds For Sculpture - Hamilton, New Jersey Located in Hamilton, New Jersey, Grounds For Sculpture is an arboretum, sculpture garden, and museum focusing on the intersection of art and nature in a playful, jovial way. Spanning 42 beautifully designed acres, the art sanctuary has nearly 300 contemporary sculptures on display. Photo courtesy of Heather Hillhouse / iStock Via Getty Images Plus No. 4: Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park - Hamilton, Ohio On 470 rolling, pastoral acres of southwestern Ohio, Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park offers a playful way to experience sculpture. The park has a strong focus on contemporary abstract art and showcases more than 70 outdoor pieces spread across meadows, hiking trails, woods, and lakes. You'll see enormous steel sculptures peeking out from native wildflower meadows and carved stone perched on hillsides. Visitors can explore on foot or rent an Art Cart, a souped-up golf cart. Photo courtesy of Brookgreen Gardens No. 3: Brookgreen Gardens - Murrells Inlet, South Carolina Founded in 1931, the 9,127-acre Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, is a sculpture garden and wildlife sanctuary containing over 2,000 works by 430 artists. This National Historic Landmark hosts one of the best American figurative sculpture collections in the world. Photo courtesy of Duffy Healy No. 2: Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park - Wilson, North Carolina This whimsical park in Historic Downtown Wilson, North Carolina, showcases the imagination of farm machinery repairman and self-taught artist, Vollis Simpson. The artist's massive kinetic sculptures are akin to towering windmills, but they're made from salvaged industrial parts like old bicycles and road signs, which gives them a whimsical character. The collection features 30 of Simpson's largest sculptures, some reaching 50 feet high. The surrounding green is perfect for plopping on a picnic blanket and watching the whirligigs spin against the Carolina sky.
