By james art 
Nicole Eisenman is perhaps one of the most respected American artists today. With an ever-evolving practice, she was able to deconstruct and reinvent her own style, opening her process to its infinite possibilities beyond any rule of market recognition and trends. Eisenman is known to be blunt, quirky, critical, sometimes inappropriate, and deeply insightful, depending on how you want to contextualize her practice within the canon of art history—or simply within an ever-evolving public landscape, too. full of paradoxes.
Her recently presented installation Fixed faucetcommissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, is the latest significant statement of her irreverence when it comes to engaging with traditional canons and genre and destabilizing, in this case, the canonical holiday notion of monument-like sculpture in public spaces. What the artist brought to Madison Square Park is actually an actual decommissioned industrial Link-Belt crane from 1969, simply decorated with handmade sculptural elements. If it is a monument, this installation refers to human development and the ambition to dominate this planet through the continuous accumulation of new construction, and can be seen as a critical element in dealing with inherent hubris and its consequences on the planet. As already explored in some of her previous monumental sculptures, the artist conceived this public commission in the context of interaction; people can walk around its 90-foot length or sit atop a counterweight that Eisenman turned into a bench. The interactive element further challenges the traditional notion of monumentality, bringing public sculptures closer to the ordinary lives of those who will encounter them in public spaces.
Although Eisenman was primarily recognized for her paintings for many years, it has been almost a decade since she ventured into sculpture, and her three-dimensional works and installations have since become some of the most talked about in the art world. Her practice began to expand into three-dimensionality during a 2012 residency at Studio Voltaire in London, leading to human-scale plaster works that then became the undisputed stars of the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 2013, before turned into Processionwhich landed on the terrace of the 2019 Whitney Biennial. In recent years, Eisenman has worked on several public installations, such as her bronze bathers, fountain sketch, which found a home in Boston’s 401 Park complex in the Fenway neighborhood after being featured in Skulptur Projekte Münster. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has acquired another version of the sculptural ensemble.
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This isn’t the first time Eisenman has dabbled with industrial faucets, either: a yellow, larger one was part of her recent study at the MCA in Chicago, where her idea for a “monumental sculpture” was a faucet with a bronze cat’s head replaced by the smashing a ball. It should be noted that these works represent a further expansion and personal revision of her exploration of the concept of Readymades, reflected in the continuous process of appropriation of styles, themes and motifs that animate her practice, as it freely predates the entire history of the art.
In New York, Eisenman added a series of sculptural elements to the crane, including a flag-waving figure atop the crane’s overturned cabin, a bronze leg wearing a Birkenstock wedged under the crane’s steps, and bandages attached to the crane—all elements that emphasize how outdated is the apparatus, and what a decadent symbol of modern civilization it is now that the consequences of the unchecked urban development it allowed have been exposed. At the same time, it still seems to imply a desire to preserve this instrument as a relic or cultural memory to which we are still attached.
“Our public art commissions often inspire new and sometimes provocative perspectives on the world around us,” Madison Square Park Conservancy Executive Director Holly Leicht said in a statement. “With this work, Eisenman creates a sharp dialogue and visual contrast with the skyscrapers rising near the park. It is a fitting end to the anniversary season of our public art programme, setting the tone for ambitious commissions in the years to come.”
Fixed faucet (which was realized with support from the VIA Art Fund, as noted in a recent Observer interview with Arts Advisor Molly Epstein) marks the fourth and final artist commission in the twentieth anniversary year of the Conservancy’s art program, following a vibrant installation based on tulle by Ana María Hernando, which opened in the park in January, the towering sculptural sentinels in two New York City parks by Rose B. Simpson, presented in April, and the two-part processional performance by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, held last month.
To Nicole Eisenman Fixed faucet will be seen at Madison Square Park’s Oval lawn until March 9.