Tom Fruin’s Watertower Lights Up the Brooklyn Sky
Brooklyn’s skyline has changed in a magical, colorful and dynamic way! We’re thrilled to welcome the Tom Fruin’s Watertower, installed on the rooftop of 20 Jay Street. The sculpture, a colossal kaleidoscopic, is viewable from street and will reside over DUMBO for the next year. The sun illuminates its brightly colored plexiglass pieces during the day while an Arduino-controlled light sequence designed by Ryan Holsopple will cast its vibrant shadows across the neighborhood at night.
Fruin is a DUMBO-based artist who often works with reclaimed and discarded materials, designing Watertower from over a thousand scraps of plexiglass salvaged from all over New York City – from the floors of Chinatown sign shops, to the now closed DUMBO studio of artist Dennis Oppenheim, to Astoria’s demolition salvage warehouse Build It Green!NYC.
A beacon of light, the sculpture is a tribute to the iconic New York water tower and a symbol of the vibrancy of Brooklyn. Viewable from the parks and streets of DUMBO, the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, FDR Drive and Lower Manhattan…you won’t be able to keep your eyes off its magnetic sparkle!
Watertower is the fourth piece of Fruin’s internationally recognized Icon Series, with pieces established in Buenos Aires and Copenhagen, and marks the Series’ US premiere.
About the artist: Tom Fruin (b. 1974) works in Brooklyn, NY. His work is a part of many international museums and collections, most notably The Hanck Collection at the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, Germany; the Richard J. Massey Foundation for Arts and Sciences in New York, NY; and the Buenos Aires Design Center (Centro Metropolitano de Diseño) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Fruin’s most recent contribution to public art in New York City is the 50 foot tall neon sculpture HOTEL on the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
This public sculpture is supported in part through a Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant, a Build It Green materials grant, and The Richard J. Massey Foundation for Arts and Sciences. Additional technical support provided by Platform4 Collaborative Design; JD Messick; and Two Trees Management Co.
Image via Robert Banat
