Monumental sculpture by Lippold can be admired at the New York airport

New York, Apr 7 (EFE) .- The monumental and popular sculpture “Orpheus and Apollo” by the American Richard Lippold can be admired at New York’s LaGuardia airport after not having been seen for more than seven years, after the Lincoln Center removed it from one of its lobbies due to the renovation of the space in 2014.
As announced on Wednesday by the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, the move of the piece, weighing five tons and made up of 190 glowing metal bars, is the result of an agreement reached between the Lincoln Center and the authorities of New York and New Jersey managers of the renovation that is being carried out at the LaGuardia airport.
“The new LaGuardia airport will offer a world-class traveler experience that reflects what New York is all about, and since our state is an excellent cultural destination, we want to ensure that our airports live up to that reputation,” he said. Cuomo in a statement sent to the press.
“Orpheus and Apollo” was installed in 1962 in the great David Geffen Hall (then called the Philharmonic Hall) of the Lincoln Center after being donated by the Ittleson Foundation and was removed more than half a century later with the renovations of the building.
The imposing piece is made up of Muntz metal bars (made up of 60% copper and 40% zinc) that are individually suspended from the ceiling with steel cables, but in 2020 Lincoln Center announced that it could not hang it again in its facilities after the modifications to which they had been subjected.
It was Paul Goldberger, an architect who has served as a consultant on both the LaGuardia and Lincoln Center renovations, who came up with the idea to display the work at the airport when he learned that America’s largest performing arts institution was not he was going to put it back in its facilities.
Specifically, “Orpheus and Apollo” can be seen in the Central Lobby of LaGuardia, a large room formed by large windows that connects the train with the new Terminal B of the airport, which is expected to open its doors in 2022 after a renovation project of 8,000 million dollars.
For this reason, the new home of the sculpture will be very similar to the old one, where it remained in a large glass room, and it can be observed from different points of view, both from inside and from outside the building itself.
Lippold’s masterpiece will thus join other important pieces that have been installed in the public spaces of Terminal B by Sarah Sze, Laura Owens, Jeppe Hein and Sabine Hornig, as well as a sculpture of water and lights called “Aquatique Show” which will entertain travelers in the airport shopping area.
Lippold, an industrial designer turned artist, was one of the most important postwar sculptors in the United States, and his pieces can still be seen in some of the most important buildings in New York, such as the Met Life or the Seagram, both in Manhattan.

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