Osamu Shimoda’s “Ascendence” the Symbol of Kingsborough Community College.

As you drive onto the campus of Kingsborough you cannot miss it- it’s the large orange object 37 feet tall, reaching for the sky.

The object is made from Cor-Ten Steel and stand prominently at the center of  the circle at the front of the campus. The object is called “Ascendence” and was created by the famed Japanese Artist Osamu Shimoda (1924 – 2000).

The work was created as an inspiration for Kingsborough students  from all over the world to Ascend -to rise up,  and to succeed.

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/ascendance-by-osamu-shimoda/view/bing/

His most famous piece was  installed in 1977 at the front of the Kingsborough Community College, Brookyn where he had a working studio once.

OSAMU SHIMODA  (1924 – 2000).

“MONUMENTAL IRON SCULPTOR”, Osamu Shimoda.

Osamu Shimoda used to call himself a “MONUMENTAL IRON SCULPTOR” Many might, remember that Shimoda was once was a well known and respected semi-abstract painter exhibiting his art works in Japan at the Nitten artists group shows in early 1950s. In 1959 he came to New York and under the strong influence of The New York School movement, abandoned his academic painting style, and started to create relief works of shaped canvas, and then he changed his works gradually to three dimensional sculpture.

That was a golden age of Pop and Minimal art in New York of early 1960s. Andy Warhol’s famous works like “Green Coca-Cola Bottles” or ” Marilyn Monroe” caused a sensational stir in the Contemporary Art World. The enumeration of the machine-produced identical objects represents the mass production of the commercialism, denying a human touch has been cheered and accepted at large (by public). On the other hand, Donald Judd who is a pioneer of Minimal Art, utilized new man-made materials such as plastic, plywood and etc., which were developed during the Vietnam War, he created a new art form different from the traditional wood, stone carving or bronze sculptures byy constructing simple forms or objects using small pieces of form of materials.

Thus, constructive sculptures are far from the traditional ones which are executed by curving materials by chisels and knives scraping off the materials into smaller size. On the contrary, constructive sculpture has a potential power to stretch into the space without any physical restrictions. As the works bigger in scale, the smaller the galleries and they moved out seeking for a bigger open space such as parks, public places in suburbs. Numerous monumental sculptures by prominent artists like Isamu Noguchi, David Smith and Alexander Calder started to display their monumental works in civic plazas, parks and entrances of buildings, and finally Monumental Sculpture Art in America reached a golden Age.

In 1972, Shimoda moved his studio into downtown of old Brooklyn. That old ruined building that had been used as an auto salvaging factory, where he found a pile of rusty iron sheets leaning against the wall or stuck on the floor. They had been abandoned for many years but it was still beautiful and exuded unchanged power of iron in Shimoda’s eyes. The iron, in general is an inorganic and insensitive material with heavy, hard and cold images as well as destructive, inflexible: because of its powerful sense of existence. Thus, a very few artists had recognized the aesthetic beauty within iron and use it as his or her aesthetic subject or even medium. Would it not be a possibility to execute a monumental iron sculpture by subtracting or minimizing those negative elements from the iron by attempting to lessen the gravity of the iron through the study on the layout or construction of the work?

ASCENDENCE :the act of rising or moving up : the act of ascending

Barbara Rose, an American born modern art critic, who once commented on Shimoda’s works said that “intensive power and balance will be a distinctive feature of his works just like samurai spirits in Shimoda’s blood.” In his later years, he used to say that the iron talked to him and its power inspired his creativity. Osamu Shimoda was an artist who was thoroughly fascinated with a beauty of iron.

Today his work at Kingsboorugh stands as a testament to the Immigrant soul and spirit in the USA ascending higher and higher.

The Different “Woman Seated in the Sun”- from Kingsborough- Leonda Finke

One of my favorite at works at Kingsborough Community College is the life-sized bronze figure by Leonda F. Finke, Woman in the Sun Seated  -1988 placed in front of the Robert Kibbee Library. Finke who is in her 90s still works on Long Island and still makes castings of her works. A true master of the medium and recognized by professionals around the world, she has one of her works—a bronze portrait of painter Georgia O’Keefe, in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian. At Kingsborough, her sculpture has a real human and natural grounding that has always drawn me to it; what is it about bronze that makes it so much more serious?

Maybe it’s just me, but Finke’s work belongs somewhere permanent. The figures invite being found almost accidentally, where we can then observe them, and in doing so become more aware of our rough skins, our uncertainties, but also our own internal solidity.

One day while strolling through Seward Johnson’s Grounds for Sculpture (a magnificent place to visit), I came across another Woman in the Sun Seated -1988 by Finke, this was the same sculpture although the setting and location made it entirely new and different for me as the viewer.

As I have found out there are quite a few castings of this sculpture throughout the country, each in its own special and very different setting. It is considered one of her best (and yes –most expensive) works.

I love the fact that I could be in New Jersey or North Carolina, or perhaps in Massachusetts or Westchester, or even in Ossining , New York and see my Woman in the Sun Seated. Each time the very same and yet still very different.

Originally from New York City, Finke resides on Long Island. Exhibitions of her work have been held in states along the East Coast and in England, Finland, Germany, and Italy.  She is represented in collections at Kingsborough, The Butler Institute of American Art, Ohio; Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina; the National Academy of Design, New York; New Jersey’s Newark Museum; the National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.; and other major museums, as well as private collections in this country, Japan and Europe.  Besides her figurative works, Finke is also recognized internationally for her design and casting of medals, which she has been making since 1986.

Leonda Finke’s sculpture has been primarily concerned with the human figure. “There I find constantly changing forms [and] a wealth of formal vocabulary [that] is a vehicle for expressing the basic emotions that shape our lives.”

Winning her first national prize from the National Association of Women Artists in 1965, she has consistently been recognized for excellence in her work. In 1989 she was awarded the National Sculpture Society’s Gold Medal, in 1990 she received the Alex Ettl Cash Award from the National Academy of Design, and in 1991, 1992, and 1993 she again won prizes and awards from the National Sculpture Society. In 1994 she became an elected Academician of the National Academy of Design. 

She has had many solo and group exhibitions, including: Cast Iron Gallery, New York; Newark Museum, New Jersey; the National Academy of Design, New York; the American Numismatic Museum, New York; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; the Norfolk Museum, Virginia; and The Dallas Museum, Texas. Her 6 foot bronze works have been featured in the Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition at Chesterwood, the national historic museum and grounds of the American sculptor, Daniel Chester French, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Leonda Finke’s work in bronze medals has won recognition from the prestigious Federation Internationale de la Medaille. She was invited to show her work at their Medal Exhibition in Helsinki, Finland in 1990. In 1992, she was both an invited lecturer at the British Museum and had her medal, “Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own” featured on the cover of the British Art Medal society’s British Museum Exhibition Catalogue.

Her bronze portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Her medals are in the collection of the British Museum, the National Museum of American History (Smithsonian), the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, and in many private collections throughout the United States and Europe.

The Sculpture No One Knew Anything About at Kingsborough

Four decades after its creation and placement on KCC’s campus, the mystery of a perplexing sculpture has been solved. With the help of the alumnus artist’s friends, its maker was finally revealed. “The Ten Commandments,” sculpted by Marty Resnick, ’72, received recognition on October 30, 2014, with the installment of a commemorative plaque.

The corroding sculpture, made of scrap metal, stands about eight feet tall and is anchored into the ground near the T1 building. It has survived both the widespread construction of the college around it and Hurricane Sandy. Yet, until recently, no one at the college knew, or remembered, its origin.

“When Marty planted that in 1973, he wanted to show only two of the Ten Commandments above ground. He wanted the illusion of this thing sinking into the ground,” said Howard Fields, one of Resnick’s friends since high school.

Resnick attended KCC in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. He met Ken Gordon, ’71, there, who along with Fields was a driving force behind this memorial. The three became very close during that time and would remain lifelong friends. According to Gordon, Resnick’s sculpture was influenced, in part, by the final image of the original 1968 movie “Planet of the Apes,” which showed the Statue of Liberty buried up to its waist on a beach. The playfulness in its construction reflected Resnick’s humor and personality.

When Resnick passed away in August of 2013, Gordon and Fields assiduously worked to honor Resnick’s memory. They reached out to the college, and discovered that KCC knew little about the sculpture and Marty’s connection to it. After months of collaboration with KCC administrators, a plaque was installed. Afterwards, Gordon and Fields held a memorial with a group of Resnick’s old friends by the sculpture, near which they had once hung out and played music together.

Gordon and Fields played the hobosong “Big Rock Candy Mountain” on their guitars, which was one of Resnick’s favorites. According to Gordon, Resnick knowing that the sculpture’s original inscription and message on the back had practically worn away — he wondered if its continued existence might be compromised if it was misconstrued and seen solely as a religious artifact, and not as the more secular think-piece that it was.

The ecologically conscious piece, constructed from materials found on the campus’ former Maritime Training Station, makes this sculpture, literally, made of KCC itself. Today the sculpture has sunk over a foot deeper into the ground, becoming more and more like Resnick’s “Planet of the Apes” vision. “Marty used art to be thought-provoking and, like him, this sculpture is part-enigma, part-puzzle, and pure Marty,” Gordon fondly added.