Art in Embassies entered a four-year partnership with Bennington College to create an outdoor commission for the new U.S Embassy in Oslo, Norway, starting in 2014. During a yearlong curriculum devised by sculptor Jon Isherwood and Susan Sgorbati, director of the Elizabeth Coleman Center for the Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College, a cross-disciplinary team of students researched public art models and the history and arts of Norway before deciding to focus on the Arctic Circle and the eight member countries of the Arctic Council. Complexity graphics and digital carving, along with more traditional techniques, contributed to the final commission titled Arctic Shift. The interrelated sculpture, plantings, and graphics map strategic pathways, populations and resources connecting the region with outlines of the member countries as endpoints. Installed and dedicated in the fall of 2018, the project highlights our ties to this changing ecosystem and seeks to encourage dialogue through our common bonds, concerns, and successes. View the full project: Arctic Shift – Art in Embassies and Bennington College
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Art in Embassies U.S. Department of State
U.S. Consulate Nuevo Laredo
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Portal (2018)
Portal is a site-specific sculpture by American
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artist Alma Allen
Art in Embassies asked celebrated American
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sculptor, Alma Allen, to create a new work
that would resonate with the landscapes of
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Laredo and Nuevo Laredo
Alma Allen composes biomorphic forms with
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surfaces from materials sourced from his environment
I work in clay and wax in small scale
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and then expand it
using computers but still working by hand
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You could also do another…(speaking low)
Here at this study we make shells of and then
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cast in bronze
the object that we make is the mold, so it
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allows us to make one of a kind bronzes more
simply
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I have an idea but the idea never stays and
with clay and in small scale you can always
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change very quickly like drawing, it lets
you sketch and work in three dimensions
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which can’t be done with big things you have
to work it out as a small thing and then make
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it larger
I spent 20 years making things with my hands
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and it stills lets me make things with my
hands.
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Which is nice since I don’t sit and click
on the computer I wouldn’t know how to do
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it
Allen moved his home and studio from Joshua
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Tree, California to Mexico City during the
process of creating Portal.
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Mexico City is full of artists and craftspeople
of all kinds and you can make almost anything
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you can imagine.
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Whether you want to find leather worker or
bronze casting, it’s one of the largest cities
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in the world and also one of the most creative.
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The artwork also represents where they might
go this place that I see is a land with different
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kinds of freedom.
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and different kinds of opportunities.
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the piece is now at the foundary where they
cut it apart and cast it into smaller sections
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and then weld it together as the large scale
piece.
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So much happens in this small space.
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It’s probably will come to here and they have
so far done these sections.
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It’s going to weigh about 1800 pounds, it’s
hollow, yes.
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If it was solid it would weigh so much.
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It is printed, then waxed, and will become
a section of this –
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Allen’s undulating hoop frames a view from
one country into another.
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It reflects the weight and magnitude of passage.
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It doesn’t pop out looking right, there’s
a lot of stages that they do to make it look
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correct.
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Portal was cast in multiple parts from a 3D
printer mold, welded, and patinated to contrast
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the desert landscape,
A lot of my work are made to symbolize psychological
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states an moving between psychological states.
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and I hoped that that would come across a
little bit with that piece.
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There is the small version…for myself.
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A cross-cultural collaboration, initiated
by Art in Embassies, the work was conceived
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in the United States, fabricated in Mexico,
and installed at the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo
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Laredo, Mexico.
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The piece is a little bit rough but it almost
has the character of a tree in the roughness
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of the materials.
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Maybe to bring it a little bit into nature
and away from the building to separate it
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from sort of the slick and smoothness of the
modern construction.
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The piece of public art also can hopefully
allow someone to think of something different
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than their normal workday concerns and to
have a different way of thinking or a different
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idea.
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I think that’s important for all of us.
