Open Air Aquarium (2003)

by Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930 - 2017)

Photo Caption: Photo Maxine Mendoza for the Association for Public Art
  • Title

    Open Air Aquarium

  • Artist

    Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930 - 2017)

  • Year

    2003

  • Location

    The Residences at Dockside, 717 S Christopher Columbus Blvd

  • Medium

    Brushed stainless steel, on stainless steel base

  • Themes

    Women and Public Art, The Animal Kingdom

Commissioned by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority

Owned by the DePaul Group

At A Glance

  • Thirty unique abstract brushed stainless steel fish mounted on 12-foot-high stainless steel poles

  • Created by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, who survived the Nazi’s occupation of Poland during World War II

  • The artist created groups of multiple figures, each with slight differences

Open Air Aquarium is a group of thirty unique abstract brushed stainless steel fish, mounted on 12-foot-high stainless steel poles at The Residences at Dockside at Penn’s Landing. Created by renowned Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930-2017), Open Air Aquarium was commissioned by the developer, the DePaul Group, in cooperation with the Redevelopment Authority’s One Percent for Public Art Program.

Abakanowicz – who survived the Nazi’s occupation of Poland during World War II – is known for creating groups of multiple figures, each with slight differences. The artist writes: “A crowd of people or fish, insects or leaves, is a mysterious assemblage of variants of certain prototypes. A riddle of nature’s abhorrence of exact repetition, or inability to produce it. Just as the human hand cannot repeat its own gesture. I invoke this disturbing law, switching my own immobile herds into that rhythm.”

Open Air Aquarium
Photo Maxine Mendoza for the Association for Public Art

 

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