Madison Square Park Conservancy and renowned American sculptor Martin Puryear today announced a major public sculpture, Big Bling, to be on view in Madison Square Park from May 16, 2016 through January 8, 2017. The temporary outdoor work, the thirty-third public art exhibition to be mounted by Mad. Sq. Art, the free contemporary art program of Madison Square Park Conservancy, will be a multi-tier wood structure wrapped in fine chain-link fence. A gold-leafed shackle will be anchored near the top of the structure. At forty feet high, Big Bling will achieve colossal scale and elicit a range of readings, stimulating diverse and profound interpretations of its meaning.

The largest temporary outdoor sculpture Puryear has created, Big Bling is part animal form, part abstract sculpture, and part intellectual meditation. The artist's signature organic vocabulary appears in a graceful, sinewy outline and an amoeboid form in the work's center.

Big Bling’s architectural language suggests a building that is accessible by ascension through its levels. Its storeys are obstructed by chain-link fence, a barrier to entry, which will cover all visible surfaces of the sculpture. In contrast to the coarse materials employed throughout most of the work, the gold shackle is a shimmering beacon that simultaneously adorns and restrains. (The term “bling” is rooted in urban youth and rap culture of the 1990s and refers to flashy jewelry and accessories.)

Martin Puryear (American, b. 1941), an American sculptor known for his devotion to traditional ways of working, typically creates handmade artworks using methods gleaned from carpentry, boat building, and other trades with spare, exacting stylistic dignity. Wood, his signature material, is employed in his Madison Square Park project to anchor the physicality of the tremendous sculpture.

Madison Square Park’s 6.2-acre site welcomes more than 50,000 daily visitors – a richly diverse audience including local residents, families, public school groups and day camps, office workers, students, artists, and international tourists. 

“Mad. Sq. Art is a cultural resource for the general public, exhibiting important commissioned sculpture by acclaimed contemporary artists," said Keats Myer, Executive Director of Madison Square Park Conservancy. "Our goal is to bring world-class art to the public for free. Madison Square Park is truly a neighborhood park with a far-reaching cultural perspective.”

“We are honored to work with Martin Puryear to realize the largest sculpture in his distinguished body of work,” said Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Martin Friedman Senior Curator. "Puryear often balances abstraction with powerful metaphor and Big Bling sits within this trajectory. Public art is a communal activity. Its reach can be significant for communities and neighborhoods, and Puryear has captured this concept with a public sculpture of grand scale and important content."

A celebrated series of sculpture exhibitions by living artists, Mad. Sq. Art was launched by the Madison Square Park Conservancy in 2004 to bring free public art programs to New York. The program has received extensive critical and public attention since its inception and has developed into a world-class cultural institution. Its ambition and scale expands each year alongside an increasingly diverse range of innovative, world-class artists.

Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram via the hashtags #MadSqArt, #MartinPuryear and #BigBling. For more information on Madison Square Park Conservancy and its programs, please visit http://madisonsquarepark.org.