DESIGN
Arthur Silverman's "Aluminum Attitudes"
New Orleans is a cultural capital of the United States, known for rich artistic and musical traditions.
16 September, 2016
One of the city's artists took advantage of aluminium to create unique artwork over a 45-year career.
Along Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans stand six angular sculptures. The "Aluminum Attitudes" collection, commissioned in 1993, is the creation of Arthur Silverman, whose extensive work in metals is reflected in the tetrahedron shapes installed at the entrance of the University of New Orleans campus.
The 181-kilogram, heavily articulated sculptures shining in the sun are just a few of the more than 400 sculptures that Silverman has crafted. They include pieces at the New Orleans Museum of Art, City Hall, and corporate locations across the Gulf region – and all of them inspired by the tetrahedron. It's for this reason they've been featured on "The Mathematical Tourist," a blog created by Ivars Peterson. This former editor of Science News highlights destinations where math is visible in art, architecture and form.
The 181-kilogram, heavily articulated sculptures shining in the sun are just a few of the more than 400 sculptures that Silverman has crafted. They include pieces at the New Orleans Museum of Art, City Hall, and corporate locations across the Gulf region – and all of them inspired by the tetrahedron. It's for this reason they've been featured on "The Mathematical Tourist," a blog created by Ivars Peterson. This former editor of Science News highlights destinations where math is visible in art, architecture and form.
Images: BestofNewOrleans.com
Silverman definitely expressed the geometry in his work, but his love of science began in a different discipline. The artist studied medicine at Tulane University and was a practicing physician for 30 years before a colleague's end-of-life experience made him think about the real passions in his own life. That's when the then-50-year-old surgeon began his journey as a sculptor, initially with wood carving.
The tetrahedron form is what captivated him, though, so Silverman began creating pieces that are rooted in the geometry. In one, Silverman creates an aluminium cascade. In another, he designs aluminium tiles in a tetrahedron pattern that became striking wall décor. For Temple Sinai in New Orleans, he elongated the form and created an outdoor menorah. In some cases, the sculptures are painted in bright colors including one on Poydras Street in the city's upscale business district.
The tetrahedron form is what captivated him, though, so Silverman began creating pieces that are rooted in the geometry. In one, Silverman creates an aluminium cascade. In another, he designs aluminium tiles in a tetrahedron pattern that became striking wall décor. For Temple Sinai in New Orleans, he elongated the form and created an outdoor menorah. In some cases, the sculptures are painted in bright colors including one on Poydras Street in the city's upscale business district.
Images: The Mathematical Tourist
"When I first encountered tetrahedra, I was immediately fascinated by the notion of using these forms as basic building blocks for three-dimensional designs," Silverman told Peterson nearly a decade ago. Each step around a piece reveals a new experience because any four spatial points that are not on the same plane will mark the corners of triangles, which become the multiple faces of a tetrahedron.
Image: Science News
For decades, Silverman's own home – a lovingly restored corner tavern – reflected his singular passion for the tetrahedron and its puzzling angles, even down to the fireplace andirons. Aluminium is a preferred material for Silverman, but his sculptures appear in bronze and stainless steel too. He did almost all of his fabrication work in his studio, welding together the metal sections that became his sculptures. Some carry the watermarks from the 2005 Hurricane Katrina flooding in New Orleans, which filled his studio with about a third of a meter of water and left a few art pieces with a weathered patina.
Silverman was well into his 80s when he retired, but he continues to influence other artists and urban planners, just as he was encouraged by the late sculptor Enrique Alvarez. His public art leaves a legacy across New Orleans, where a signature stainless-steel Silverman piece soars 60 feet high within an elegant fountain – or a specially commissioned piece of jewelry makes a more private statement at a Mardi Gras ball. At Tulane, where the native New Yorker first made his mark on the city, the university keeps Silverman's papers in its special collections and notes his special affinity for working in aluminium.
That affinity is reflected in "Aluminum Attitudes," of course, as they continue to reveal the ever-changing dimensions within the tetrahedra to a new generation of students walking along Elysian Fields Avenue.
Silverman was well into his 80s when he retired, but he continues to influence other artists and urban planners, just as he was encouraged by the late sculptor Enrique Alvarez. His public art leaves a legacy across New Orleans, where a signature stainless-steel Silverman piece soars 60 feet high within an elegant fountain – or a specially commissioned piece of jewelry makes a more private statement at a Mardi Gras ball. At Tulane, where the native New Yorker first made his mark on the city, the university keeps Silverman's papers in its special collections and notes his special affinity for working in aluminium.
That affinity is reflected in "Aluminum Attitudes," of course, as they continue to reveal the ever-changing dimensions within the tetrahedra to a new generation of students walking along Elysian Fields Avenue.
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