Press release:

Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC, and Robischon Gallery, Denver, Colorado are pleased to announce the completion of Kim Dickey’s permanent sculpture installation located in the new David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at MSK’s sixth floor terrace garden.

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Overlooking the East River in New York City, the installation features two of Dickey’s signature terracotta-clad aluminum sculptures, Half Arch and Inverted L Beam, and three concrete animals: a seated lion, The Guardian (Patience); a dog, The Girlfriend (Fidelity); and a squirrel, The Collector (Memory). The foliated sculptures blend animal and architecture in dialogue with the natural forms of the garden. Gardens have long provided spaces for contemplation. The quiet and stillness we experience there invites an opportunity to look and listen more closely to our surroundings. Dickey’s sculptures inhabit this elevated garden, high above the ground, a site that offers the viewer expansive perspectives and a chance to be held in suspension, within a world constructed through art and nature.

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The fragmentary architectural forms of Half Arch and Inverted L Beam bookend the terrace, framing the views beyond. The sculptures, clad with thousands of green ceramic quatrefoils, reinterpret at a larger scale the Rococo decorative art tradition of bocage, objects encased by clustered, miniature flowers. The concrete foliated seated lion, dog and squirrel animate the stage of this garden space as part of the landscape independent from ornamental architectural traditions. For Dickey, these particular animals hold associations with attributes that help sustain us, such as courage, memory, loyalty and friendship.

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Dickey describes her work as “forefronting decorative art histories embedded in our surroundings, that serve as backdrops to our daily lives, and can reveal hidden inhabitants, silenced voices, and overlooked traditions. With this series, I drew upon architectural and art historical references throughout NYC from Robert Morris plinth sculptures from the 1960s on view at The Whitney, the iconic guardians of the New York Public Library, Patience and Fortitude, and to the ornamental capitals and facades found on buildings across the boroughs to connect this site to points beyond it. As these sculptures weather and become moss-covered they will be further integrated into the garden, blurring the boundaries between natural and constructed forms. I hope these works offer a source of healing and hope in the way only art can.”

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