Stop, Go, Linger: Orly Genger

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The DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA is a fine place to spend an afternoon. We went on the last day of a year-long exhibition of Orly Genger's Red, Yellow and Blue. This work was originally commissioned as a site-specific environmental sculpture by the Madison Square Park Conservancy in New York City, and then redesigned for the DeCordova's New England landscape. Although one could look at this piece as the ultimate "knit bomb," at this scale and in this rustic setting it reminded me of the old handmade stone boundary walls which meander up gentle hills, around trees, and across fields.

In Red, Yellow and Blue, the male craft of laying stones in complex weight bearing puzzle patterns (think of the hefty workman who constructed Andy Goldsworthy's large wall at Storm King) is replaced with the the feminine traditions of crocheting and knitting. Instead of stone, Genger uses a thick heavy rope – 1.4 million feet for New York's incarnation – salvaged and repurposed from old fishing and lobster nets collected from working ports around the East Coast. These nets are traditionally maintained by men. Returning to land, fishermen would carefully untangle and dry them in the sun, artfully tying and knotting them when repairs where necessary. In contrast, while the men were out to sea their wives and daughters would create extraordinarily delicate lace, as famously in the fishing village of Burano near Venice.

The scale of the piece and the rope itself is massive, even macho; Genger has been called "one of the toughest makers I know" by curator Lisa Freiman, who also calls the process of building these works "an endurance performance." So Genger's piece has some gender references woven into it that are fun to think about, although probably not her primary interest. Red, Yellow and Blue is land art, framing and highlighting the contours of the land, shaping intimate "rooms" in large open spaces, inviting people to experience familiar environments in new ways and to interact with the sculptural forms -- to play.

The sculpture's brilliant primary colors reinforce this invitation to interact. Red, yellow and blue are the colors of childhood, and of play, learning and imagination. The sculpture could have sprung from the pages of Dr. Seuss; the colors remind me of my brother's Legos and one of our favorite books, the adventures of Ant and Bee.

At the DeCordova, we were sternly forbidden to climb, sit or lie on the sculpture -- despite that the fact that the sculpture is clearly inviting us to do all of this and more: to dance along it, recline cradled in its curves, and gather with friends and strangers amongst its rootlets. So, I was delighted to see that this is exactly what New Yorkers did in Madison Square Park, in these pictures from Orly Genger's website. Although the DeCordova exhibit is over, its likely that you can see one of Genger's pieces somewhere, as she is becoming deservedly well known and widely shown. Check her website for current exhibits.