Arrive Magazine - March/April 2012

situated by curator David r. Collens—and, when commissioned, by the living artist—to fully embrace the fields, hills or woods in which it’s placed.

hatch’s former home was turned into the museum Center. it has galleries for smaller exhibits, a gift shop and offices, and it is itself a bit of outdoor sculpture. the building was constructed in part of granite stones salvaged from Danskammer, an 1834 mansion that overlooked the hudson river near newburgh, n.y., for almost 100 years. Five of Danskammer’s ionic columns are now standing free on the front lawn, like the ruins of some millennia-old acropolis.

Tiptoe Through the Meadows

the museum Center was our first destination. to get there from the parking lot, we walked through the meadows—Storm King is divided into geographically named sections—and passed two pieces called Iliad and Adonai. Why? no idea. the former looks like a big red jungle gym made from sewer pipes, the latter like a kind of tan cannon. Both scream to be climbed upon, as my daughter started to do, until we saw the signs asking patrons to stay off. Still, the physicality of the pieces is an important part of their power.

From there, we ascended museum hill, adorned with both large and small sculptures: tall spires that seem to mimic the trees, hilltop ovals and blocks that look like welcoming rest stops, rounded shapes that merge into the far-off mountains.

From atop the hill we looked back down over the
meadow and spotted, in my opinion, one of the coolest
pieces, David von Schlegell’s Untitled. three white pic-
ture-frame squares seem to hover over the grass. As you
move, they frame different views—a sort of real-time
landscape painting. Later, back in the meadow, we see
that the squares are supported on thin poles, which
explains but in no way diminishes the illusion.