Giant Bird Takes Over NYC

Photo: Courtesy of Will Ryman and the Paul Kasmin Gallery.

Seeing birds around New York’s City Madison Square Park isn’t a rare occurrence. What is strange is to spot a . Walk by the park between now and April 21st, however, and that’s precisely what you’ll see.

The sculpture, created by artist and made from nails—both store-bought and those fabricated from carbon steel—sits at the park’s southwest corner. In its mouth dangles a rose. Despite the assumed connections to flora and fauna a bird and a flower might conjure, the piece isn’t about nature to Ryman. It’s about transforming something cold and hard into something organic and soft.

“What I like most about this piece is the abstractions that the nails form within the sculpture,� says Ryman, a native New Yorker. “When you stand behind the sculpture and you’re looking at its back, you don’t see a bird but you see abstractions. When you step back and walk around, those abstractions become an image.�

The sculpture is truly something to behold. The gargantuan nails cascade down its back, causing the metal to somehow mimic a feather’s flow. Even the stilt-like legs change this everyday, oft-ignored creature into something you can’t help but gawk at. (Much, we imagine, like the sculpture’s journey on a flatbed truck from the private owner’s home to the park.)

Wyman recently finished a show at Manhattan’s Paul Kasmin gallery and now plans to take a break to let some new ideas germinate. In the mean time, head over to Madison Square Park to stare at this awesome, raven-like sculpture!

Photo: Courtesy of Will Ryman and the Paul Kasmin Gallery.