Twelve Monumental Sculptures on Park Avenue
Sophia Vari
May 20th - November 5th. 2023
From 53rd Street to 62nd street
Widely celebrated for her public sculptures, Sophia Vari will be exhibiting twelve monumental works in Park Avenue from 53rd street to 62nd street starting May 20th to November 5th. The Nohra Haime Gallery is pleased to present these installations in collaboration with The Sculpture Committee of The Fund for Park Avenue and the NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program. After having been shown in the streets of Paris, Rome, Montecarlo, Pietrasanta, Madrid, Athens, Cartagena, Baden-Baden, Geneva, Beijing, and recently in London, they will now captivate the New York public.
About the artist
Sophia Vari (born in Athens, Greece) is an established international visual artist known for polychrome sculptures, paintings, collage and watercolors. Her exploration into form and balance has evolved into several stages. Vari has pushed into the realm of dimensional space, as her nuanced geometric forms probe the relationship between the construction of physical space and the history of art. Her work is informed by Cubism, Olmec artifacts and ancient Greek sculptures.
Early into her career during the 1960s, her canvases were mostly figurative. This changed in the 1980s, when her sculptures suggested human bodies, reflected in their more rounded forms. During the mid-1990s, she flattened the planes and later applying color to the surface, she gave her sculptures an extra dimension.. The color has a tactile quality that makes the works have more vitality and movement allowing her forms to appear moving as viewers walk around them. She also echoed this dynamic aspect into her paintings and collages.
Both Vari’s monumental and smaller formats have an autonomous life. This is created from the permutation of shapes with a sense of lightness and suspension, yet resolving space and structure with an imposing bearing. Vari’s monumental sculptures have been shown around the world. In the various installations she has had, Vari pays very close attention to the integration of her work within the cities. Complexity, elegance and harmony merge to become part of the site specific space, exhibiting a powerful connection with the pieces. Sophia Vari attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris in 1958. She has exhibited widely internationally and has had nearly 100 one-person exhibitions.
Museum exhibitions include The Ludwig Museum, Kombletz; the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; the Palazzo Bricherassio, Torino; and more recently, the Pera Museum, Istanbul. Vari’s work is included in international public collections around the world, including: National Museum and Alexandros Soultzos Museum, Athens; National Pinacotheca, Athens, Museum of Modern Art, Andros, Greece; Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fundación Botero, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogota; Museo de Medellín, Medellin, Colombia; Museo de Ponce, Puerto Rico; museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague; Benaki Museum, Athens; Fondation Veranneman, Kruishoutem, Belgium; Foundation Basil and Elise Goulandris. Special thanks to Barbara McLaughlin and Julia Herzberg from the Fund for Park Avenue, Elizabeth Masella and NYC Parks, Ileana Bouboulis and Leslie G