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Neil Goodman Sculptures Come to Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park


Tooth fairy

Neil Goodman’s Four Corners. (PHOTO SUPPLIED)

University Park, IL–(ENEWSPF)– Five dramatic sculptures by Chicago artist Neil Goodman are on display at the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park (NMSP) at Governors State University.

Neil Goodman in the Park, located at the east entrance of GSU’s main campus in University Park, is a collection of five sculptures produced in 2004: Wind, Ballast, Ray, Four Corners, and Alcance. The display is the second of NMSP’s Solo Exhibition Series; Icelandic sculptor Steinunn Thorarinsdottir’s Horizons is on display through September 30.

NMSP Director Geoff Bates said the exhibition provides a rare opportunity to see Goodman’s work in a natural setting.

“Neil Goodman has been widely exhibited for a number of years, but mostly in galleries or other indoor venues,” Bates said. “We have placed these remarkable sculptures in a grassy glade, and it gives a whole new perspective to what the artist is seeking to accomplish.”

Goodman, who currently lives and has a studio in Chicago, is a Professor of Art at Indiana University Northwest in Gary. Goodman says he has drawn inspiration for many years from the industrial rustbelt topography of northwest Indiana. “I have often marveled at the fantastic and uniquely sculptural shapes of many of the mills, bridges, barges and cranes indigenous to the area. My work is both a reflection of my environment as well as a visual link to it.”

Bates said Goodman’s angular geometric forms have an organic quality that fits in well with the NMSP’s rolling landscape. They appear to be both primitive tools and the by-products of a post-industrial world, he said.

The five Goodman pieces are on loan from the artist and will appear at NMSP through October, 2011. Goodman is represented by Perimeter Gallery in Chicago.

Goodman’s sculpture has been commissioned and collected by museums, corporations, convention centers, parks, synagogues, universities and private residences. In the Chicago area, three of his most visible public projects include a monumental wall relief at the Chicago McCormick Place South Pavilion, a permanent large-scale bronze installation at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, and a free standing sculpture at the Burnham Park Children’s Garden at Soldier Field.

The nationally-renowned Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park is located at Governors State University’s main campus at 1 University Parkway, University Park, Illinois. The park free and open from dawn to dusk 365 days a year. For more information about Neil Goodman in the Park or the sculpture park, contact the NMSP at [email protected] or (708) 534-4486.


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