All Over Albany

Magnetic Shift at Empire State Plaza

An untitled work by Frost that's on display. Here's a larger pic if you'd like a better view.

We had a few minutes this week to check out the new Phil Frost exhibit on the ESP concourse, Magnetic Shift. It's in the Corning Tower, just behind the escalators that lead up to the plaza level.

Frost was born in Jamestown and grew up (and skateboarded) in the Albany area. Exhibit blurbage:

"From a young age I found myself inspired by the various forms of Modernism encapsulated in Wallace Harrison's architectural masterpiece, The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza, most notably the works of Clyfford Still, Naum Gabo, Ellsworth Kelly, and David Smith," said Frost. "It is with great honor that I accept this privilege of being able to now, some 30 years later, form a curated conversation with this work in its unique home." ...

Frost creates work that combines the raw, gritty edge of the street through the use of found materials with an elegant, painterly aesthetic. Frost describes his art as being "comprised of a depth of layered sinuous sheaths of glyphic information that I refer to as intuitive mathematics; they are overlaid and dance atop figurative busts and repetitions or grids of heads that I call perceptive portraiture." Frost first became known in the early 1990's for his involved installations on the streets of New York City.

The exhibit is open Monday-Friday from 6 am to 6 pm. It will be on display through August 18, 2017.