Public Art Fund To Exhibit Siah Armajani’s “Bridge Over Tree” At Brooklyn Bridge Park
BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK – The Public Art Fund announced on Wednesday that it will exhibit artist Siah Armajani’s Bridge Over Tree (1970) at Brooklyn Bridge Park in the first re-staging of the installation in nearly 50 years.
Created by the Iranian-born, Minneapolis-based artist Siah Armajani, Bridge Over Tree is composed of a 91-foot-long walkway topped with a shingled roof and featuring a steep set of stairs at the center that climbs over a small evergreen tree.
Armajani created the piece during the Vietnam War, a period of political turmoil and activism, and after the artist fled Iran due to his pro-democracy views. Bridge Over Tree is “intrinsically political,” according to the Public Art Fund, encouraging “connectivity and dialogue among strangers as they walk over and around the bridge.” The bridge has been a recurring theme for the artist throughout his 60 year career, representing “a poetic form” that connects “people, places, communities, and ideas.”
Known for his large-scale, outdoor installations—including bridges, gardens, gazebos, and “structures that create shelters for social exchange or solitary meditation,” Armajani’s work blurs the line between sculpture and architecture.
“It is an honor to bring Bridge Over Tree to New York City,” Armajani said in a statement. “The work has been on view only once, in 1970, but I have long hoped to revisit it. By siting the work in this international city and between two highly recognizable bridges, Public Art Fund has given Bridge Over Tree a new civic context.”
Bridge Over Tree was first exhibited at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1970. The artwork will be on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park on the Empire Fulton Ferry Lawn between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. The work will be shown in conjunction with The Met Breuer’s retrospective Siah Armajani: Follow This Line, on view at the museum from February 20 through June 2.
Siah Armajani: Bridge Over Tree
On view Wednesday, February 20 through Sunday, September 29
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Empire Fulton Ferry Lawn (off Water Street, between New Dock Street and Old Dock Street)