Sculptor Eleanora Kupencow Lectures at CMEE
On August 25, Hamptons artist Eleanora Kupencow is giving a lecture at the Children’s Museum of the East End.
The lecture will focus on the meaning and inspiration for her sculpture “Horsing Around with the Arrows of Time,” which is on permanent display at the museum.
The work was first unveiled in 2008 at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan, known as the Gateway to the UN. It was on display there for a year before it was moved to the Pearl Street Triangle in the Dumbo section in Brooklyn. Since 2014, the piece has been on permanent display at The Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton.
No matter where it resides, the piece has brought joy to so many people of all ages with its bright colors and oblong characters. According to Kupencow, the Children’s Museum seems to be the perfect place for her creation, considering its resonance with the younger audience.
“It was very popular with children. They would play games around it, climb on it, made stories—nursery schools used to come there. It was a special place for them,” Kupencow says.
Originally, “Horsing Around with the Arrows of Time” was intended as an environmental piece—it’s a four-piece collection of cubist characters including the purple king, the blue thinker, green Mother Earth and a duo of pink horsemen, each playing a role in a parable about the future of the environment. The message still remains, but over time, the nature of the series has become one of inspiration and imagination, permitting children to formulate their own stories about the characters.
“It inspired me to make new animals and creatures,” says Kupencow, whose similarly styled sculpture, “Fun Seetz,” is permanently displayed at the pedestrian plaza on Old Fulton Street in Dumbo.
Eleanora Kupencow will be at the Children’s Museum of the East End on Thrusday, August 25 at 6:30 p.m. For more information on the artist, visit eleanorakupencow.com. For more information on the Children’s Museum of the East End, visit cmee.org.