Artist Zaq Landsberg’s £2,000 ‘Reclining Liberty’ (2021) has been a sensation since landing in Harlem two years ago. The 25-foot statue’s presence in Upper Manhattan and its subsequent trip to Jersey City sparked a steady stream of local news and social media. posts showing visitors touching, climbing on and posing in front of the public work. Today, Landsberg’s sculpture is spending its final days in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn before heading to the Arlington Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia (Arlington MoCA).
Landsberg cast his enormous sculpture using plaster resin and then coated with copper paint and oxidizing acid to match the look of the real thing Statue of Libertywhich has withstood the elements of New York City since its unveiling on Liberty Island in 1886. The pose of the smaller statue is inspired by depictions of the reclining buddhawhich show the religious character in a state of nirvana.
In April 2021, Landsberg’s sculpture was installed in Harlem’s morning park. A little over a year later, the work was transferred to Liberty State Park in Jersey City, where he rested with his back to the Lower Manhattan skyline. Nearby, tourists boarded the ferry for the real Statue of Liberty.
On June 6, the sculpture was transported to Andrew Logan Projects in Red Hook. (The move involved a truck, a shipping container and a crane.) “Reclining Liberty” premiered June 8 for a quick two-week stint in first-floor gallery space. It will close to the public on Saturday June 24. Before it arrives in Virginia, however, the massive artwork will need to be cleaned and repaired.
“It’s just in there as it is,” Landsberg said of the sculpture’s display in the Red Hook Gallery. “Showing all the love, wear and tear and battle scars that hundreds of thousands of audience members have given her in New Jersey.” The artist added that parts of the “Reclining Liberty” are shiny where viewers touched it.
Landsberg will begin cleaning the room on Monday, June 26. The finishing process will be completed at Andrew Logan’s Canal Street Studios location in Bucks County, PA.
Then, in August, the “Reclining Liberty” will arrive at MoCA Arlington. The exhibit (and the moving sculpture) is co-sponsored by the museum and Arlington Public Art.
Although “Reclining Liberty” is coming out, eager visitors can still see a version of it in all five boroughs: a real estate company commissioned Landsberg to create a replica for an office park in Staten Island. While the 2022 facility will be significantly less scenic than the original facilities in Wooded Morningside Park and Harborside Liberty State Park, a small piece of New York’s chill-out icon will remain in the city where she is born.
