Unmoored: A Family Portrait
On view February 24 - April 9, 2022
The central element of Leonard Ursachi’s Unmoored: A Family Portrait is a 7 ½ foot tall sculpture in the form of a bollard. Suspended around and reflecting it are seven framed mirrors.
Ursachi based Unmoored on a 19th century bollard that once stood on a Brooklyn pier. Bollards are mooring posts to secure arriving ships. Early American bollards were made of old cannons buried muzzle first into wharves, with a third of their barrels and rounded butts above ground. Over centuries, bollards moored countless ships to Brooklyn’s piers. Some carried slaves, some carried immigrants, some carried silk and cotton and tea.
Today, bollards have migrated from shores to streets, where, squat and thick, they stand sentry before post offices, banks, and religious buildings, set close together so that no vehicle can pass through. Bollard as protector; bollard as deflector.
Ursachi’s Unmoored references climate as well as cannons. The impact of environmental choices is a leitmotif threading through his work. With its ballooned scale, cloud-like surface, and shape reminiscent of a breaching whale – Unmoored stands against warming oceans and rising tides.