Client News: Sam Nigro...Sculptor

While everyone has heard about the "Waterfall" under the Brooklyn Bridge, much more is happening in the greatest borough:
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Guggenheim Fellow completes
The Strategic Placement of Stone
To embody the haiku,
Space ... its own place, a practiced or tactical place – their interaction
2007 Guggenheim Fellow, Samuel Nigro, completes the sculpture, The Strategic Placement of Stone. The work is a
9-ton block of granite that has been split in two and placed back together in a dynamic, sight-specific sculpture. It will
stand at the north end of Cadman Plaza Park near the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, in June 2008, and will
remain as a part of the neighborhood’s built environment until May 2009. Samuel Nigro's motivation for this piece is
to give back to the quickly changing, artistic neighborhood of DUMBO, which has been his home base since 1996.
Three years since its inception, The Strategic Placement of Stone represents the largest and most public view of Mr.
Nigro’s stonework to date. This project is fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts, selected by the
NYC Parks & Recreation Temporary Public Arts Program and partially funded by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts
Foundation. The stone came from The Rock of Ages Quarry, Barre, VT.
Samuel Nigro arrived on the New York Art scene in 1994 and was known for his endurance-based performances and
installations that combined objects, architectural structures, videos and performance – always including stone and its
breaking. He eventually separated the video and performance from the stonework as different forms of the same idea
and has been using multi-ton blocks of granite and creating videos separately since 2004. Mr. Nigro states:
“My art is singular. The activities to create it are manifold: sculpture, video, performance, drawing,
and writing. The work has always been about the break. I take stone, break it, manipulate and
study the pieces, put it all back together, and then strategically place it in a public or private setting;
or, as with my earlier work, within a video and performance context; and, now more frequently, in
my writing. The stone can be physical or symbolic; the break, real or metaphoric.”
There will be an opening for the artist on site (the intersection of Cadman Plaza East and Red Cross Place) from 6:30
to 8:00 pm, July 3rd, rain or shine, with a reception to follow at 68 Jay Street Bar (corner of Jay and Water Streets).
Mr. Nigro would like to thank those local Brooklyn groups and businesses whose donations and time helped make
The Strategic Placement of Stone possible: Community Board #2; Copyrite – 45 Washington Street; Front Street
Pizza – 80 Front Street; Heights Prime Meats, Inc. – 59 Clark Street; Peas and Pickles – 45-55 Washington Street;
Rebar – 142 Front Street; Remsen Graphics – 165 Remsen Street; 68 Jay Street Bar – 68 Jay Street; Superfine –
126 Front Street; and Two Trees Management – 45 Main Street.
Samuel Nigro,