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  • Alan Sonfist - Info

    Born 1946, Bronx, NY
    Lives and works in New York, NY

    Environmental Art pioneer Alan Sonfist creates site-responsive earthworks that probe the relationships between humans, nature, and the fragility of the world they share. Since the mid-1960s, Sonfist’s sensitive landscape interventions have breathed new life into delicate urban ecosystems, returned damaged green spaces to their pre-industrial age glory, and created new habitats for endangered flora and fauna. Sonfist is perhaps best known for Time Landscape (1965-present), a forested 200 x 40-foot permanent landmark in lower Manhattan that recreates the original landscape of the city as it would have witnessed by the first European settlers.  The environmental sculpture has inspired many other urban environmental landscapes throughout the world.

    In line with past preservationist gestures, The Endangered Species of New England is an outdoor installation created specifically for deCordova's Sculpture Park. It consists of four larger-than-life aluminum leaves that stand on their stems like signposts for a very real threat in our region—the potential extinction of several of New England’s most beloved native trees: the American Beech, the American Chestnut, the Burr Oak and the Sugar Maple. These sculptural leaves—which have the appearance of being fixed, strong, and indestructible—are totems of both warning and respect for the trees that are silently disappearing around us.

    The American Beech is fighting a losing battle against Beech bark disease and the Burr Oak is struggling against the invasion of exotic species. The America Chestnut was nearly wiped out because of fungal disease in the early 1900s, and their numbers are continually dwindling. The Sugar Maple, used for maple syrup production, requires cold winters and is suffering from the rise in global temperature. These trees are struggling to survive and if they become extinct the New England landscape will be forever changed.   

    Sonfist’s leaves are more than commemorative objects; they honor their species through time capsules that are buried in the ground beneath each sculpture. The individual capsules contain the seeds for the tree symbolized directly above, thus protecting the legacy and future growth of the indigenous trees of New England and all living creatures who depend upon them for survival.

    Alan Sonfist studied at Ohio State University before receiving his MA from Hunter College, NY. His works can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Princeton University Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum, and the Ludwig Museum in Aachen, Germany. Sonfist has received major grants or awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation for Art and Architecture, the Chase Manhattan Bank Foundation, and the U.S.Information Agency.