Installation03/25/10
Tau arrives in South Orange.
Tau - Tony Smith Sculpture Project
May 11, 2012
Tau – Tony Smith Sculpture Project
Influential abstract sculptor Tony Smith (1927-1980) lived most of his life in South Orange, New Jersey. In 2002, the Smith family gifted his sculpture ‘Tau’ to the Village of South Orange and AKD was commissioned to site the sculpture and manage its installation in Meadowland Park. The spatial structure of this landscape, defined by mature [...]
Influential abstract sculptor Tony Smith (1927-1980) lived most of his life in South Orange, New Jersey. In 2002, the Smith family gifted his sculpture ‘Tau’ to the Village of South Orange and AKD was commissioned to site the sculpture and manage its installation in Meadowland Park. The spatial structure of this landscape, defined by mature oaks and flowering understory trees, creates opportunities to engage the movement and mass embodied in Tau’s form. Tau appears to lean back into the hillside, resisting the pull of gravity and creating a direct relationship between the mass of the sculpture and our own physical experience of the topography. As one circles the sculpture, the arrangement of the plane surfaces unfold in light and shadow, creating the effect of a counterclockwise twisting motion moving up and out from the stable base. This spiraling movement is echoed in the placement of new trees, interplanted among the existing Dogwoods.