In Review

SCULPTED BEAUTY: Ground was broken this fall on a project to extend the Memorial Art Gallery’s Centennial Sculpture Park. A rendering shows details of the project, including new works by Pia Camil (the rainbow in the background) and Rashid Johnson (the curved sculpture in the foreground). The second phase will extend the park to the west of the original museum building toward Prince Street and the Rochester City School District’s School of the Arts.

A monumental 42-x-16 ½-foot colorful metal rainbow will soon grace the lawn outside the Memorial Art Gallery. The work by noted Mexican artist Pia Camil, entitled Lover’s Rainbow, is just one of the pieces that will help anchor a second phase of the museum’s Centennial Sculpture Park.

The museum broke ground this fall on the project, work that will extend the park west to Prince Street and serve as a welcoming entrance to the museum from the School of the Arts (SOTA), part of the Rochester City School District.

Artist Rashid Johnson, a key figure in the recent reemergence of abstraction, was inspired by the Black and Brown students of SOTA and designed an elegantly curved sculpture as a physical and symbolic gateway inviting the larger community into the museum. Intended to create a community gathering space, the interior of the curve features nongendered, nonracialized faces, representing all people.

As with the original park, which opened in 2013, curators hope the second phase will offer the community iconic landmarks, the kind that prompt people to say “Let’s meet at MAG’s rainbow.”

The park is one of several campus projects that debuted this year. Others include the Sloan Performing Arts Center on the River Campus, providing needed space for theater, music, and dance programs; a space in Carlson Library for exploring extended reality (XR) technologies; and a revamped Gleason Library in Rush Rhees Library.