British artist Thomas J Price arrives in New York with a monumental double presence: a massive sculpture in the heart of Times Square and a major solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, his first with Wooster Street gallery. Through stillness and scale, Price asks: Who gets to stand tall in public space? Who gets to be remembered in bronze?
Mounted beneath the circus of billboards is Grounded in the Stars (2023), a 12-foot woman towering above passersby with quiet confidence. Rather than being based on a single person, the subject culminates in a composite of faces from places around the globe, resisting assumption in her open-ended identity. The slight bend of knee and ease of stance recall the contrapposto of Michaelangelo’s David, yet her presence redefines sculptural conventions of triumph through subtle grace and familiarity.
Moving downtown, Price continues an exploration of the grandeur with five towering figures in Resilience of Scale. Constructed using digital sculpting and lost-wax-casting, these bronzes – much like their Midtown counterpart – honor everyday individuals through the very materials and scale historically reserved for kings and emperors. “Together, the works amplify traditionally marginalized bodies and redress structures of hierarchy, inviting questions about who we chose to celebrate in art,” the gallery described. Donning casual poses and ordinary attire, they radiate a contemplative interiority — as if caught in thought rather than performance.
Grounded in the Stars and Resilience of Scale are now on view in New York. In addition to the sculptures, Price’s stop-motion animation Man Series will be projected nightly across Times Square through May at 11:57 PM to 12 AM EST, as a part of the Midnight Moment program.
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