'Oracle' by Sanford Biggers Inspires High Impact Emotion at NYC's Rockefeller Center
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Sanford Biggers, Oracle (2021) at Rockefeller Center. Photo by Daniel Greer, courtesy of Art Production Fund.
Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center is full of larger-than-life mythological heroes. A gilded bronze sculpture of the Titan god of fire Prometheus resides with a 1930s frieze sculpture of Zeus and an unforgettable ancient Greek Titan Atlas bearing the weight of the heavens on his shoulders.
Given their heroic status as symbols of white-male-dominated Greek civilization, it’s not clear how Atlas, Prometheus and Zeus feel about the arrival of a new mythic figure named ‘Oracle’ onto the Rockefeller Plaza main entrance, facing Fifth Avenue.
The larger-than-life , 25-foot-tall sculpture by Harlem-based artist Sanford Biggers resides in Rockefeller Center until June 29. Oracle is the largest statue to date in Biggers’ ‘Chimera’ series, a truly spectacular artistic effort that merges European statues and African masks.
Sanford Biggers, Oracle (2021) at Rockefeller Center. Photo by Daniel Greer, courtesy of Art Production Fund.
Originally scheduled to open last September, ‘Oracle’s unveiling now represents a larger-than-life event for New York City itself. Biggers told Artnet News that the presentation of the 15,000 pounds bronze statue “was amazing just because of the sheer size and magnitude of the work itself,” Biggers told Artnet News. “To open right now, as the city is starting to open up and the weather is getting nice, and to leave this as a gift in the city I live in is an extreme honor.”
‘Oracle’ has been a decade in the making from the time Biggers first spoke with Art Production Fund, which organized the show with New York’s Marianne Boesky Gallery.
Biggers’ Chimera series is informed by the recent scholarship regarding the academic and historical “white-washing” of classical Greco-Roman sculpture simultaneously intersecting with the early twentieth century “black-washing” of various African sculptural objects. “The Chimera sculptures specifically challenge the associated cultural and aesthetic assumptions about their source material while acknowledging the often dubious origins of the original objects themselves,” writes the Art Production Fund.
This first ever campus wide survey commissioned by Rockefeller Center presenta Biggers’ artwork throughout the campus as ‘Art in Focus’. Even the iconic Rockefeller Center flagpoles, with flags that feature a unique wave illustration are designed by Biggers. The selected design represents the elements wind and water and evokes ideas of movement, transformation, and flow.
“I've always been intrigued by Rockefeller Center for its architectural history and mythological references. Rockefeller Center is an ideal context for myth creation and allows me to experiment with this approach. I’m pleased for the opportunity to exhibit the largest Chimera sculpture to date alongside the artworks featured in Art In Focus. This combination enhances the persistence of myth while also producing a constellation of connections within each work and the site itself.” - SANFORD BIGGERS
