Creative Saskatchewan, the new cultural industries development crown corporation from the province of Saskatchewan in Canada, is organizing its first trade mission to New York, November 11-15, 2014. Trade Mission NYC will be a platform for the most comprehensive presentation of art and culture from Saskatchewan ever in New York. Trade Mission NYC will include an art exhibition, a series of concerts, receptions and special events. “Wild Thing”, the art exhibition component of the trade mission, is a snapshot of the history, power and diversity of the arts in Saskatchewan. Curated by Michael Hosaluk, the exhibition will be on view at Lightbox, 339 West 38th Street, and will feature the work of 30 artists from Saskatchewan including Heather Benning, Lorne Beug, Mel Bolen, Victor Cicansky, Martha Cole, Ruth Cuthand, Joe Fafard, Brian Gladwell, Gary Greer, Greg Hardy, Michael Hosaluk, June Jacobs, Marie Lannoo, Jefferson Little, Zachari Logan, Ellen Moffat, Jeff Nachtigal, Clint Neufeld, Alison Norlen, Alica Popoff, Les Potter, Anita Rocomora, Jamie Russell, Adrian Stimson, Martin Tagseth, Doug Taylor, David Thauberger, Sean Weisgerber and Zane Wilcox. “Saskatchewan, Canada has always been at the cutting edge of the Art and Craft movement,” said curator Michael Hosaluk. “Often considered quiet and subdued, this influential province engages artists in wild and diverse ways, and maintains a uniqueness all its own. The theme for this exhibition conjures up different experiences for each artist and connects us all on many different levels.The artists in “Wild Thing” represent the history of art in this province and the excitement of many amazing things to come.” In addition to “Wild Thing,” the trade mission will present three of Saskatchewan’s up-and-coming recording artists, Close Talker, Young Benjamins, and Dead South in a free concert on November 12 at Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street. About Creative Saskatchewan: Creative Saskatchewan is a government agency that serves the people of Saskatchewan through work with the creative industries of the province. Creative Saskatchewan is responsible for fi

A series of seven stainless steel sculptures by a distinguished Amsterdam-based German artist Ewerdt Hilgemann is on view on Park Avenue in New York until November 7, 2014. Entitled “Moments in a Stream,” Hilgemann’s installation parades along the avenue in seven locations, from 52^nd Street to 67^th Street, with large-scale pieces—some in groups of two or more—placed on the grassy medians. The seven sculptures, ranging in size from 8 to 20 feet in height, were created specially for the Park Avenue installation using a unique vacuum process, which “implodes” geometric shapes causing the material to deform according to natural laws. The Park Ave pieces will be deinstalled November 10 through 12 and will immediately be reinstalled at Mana Contemporary, in Jersey City, New Jersey until September 2015.

The first Dutch or German artist to have a show on Park Avenue, Hilgemann developed his method in the early 1980s after experimenting with white wooden wall pieces that captured light, influenced by the ZERO movement. Hilgemann’s “implosion” process begins by fabricating perfect, geometrically pure stainless steel forms, which are meticulously welded and polished to satin gloss. After the pieces are complete, the artist slowly pulls the air out with a vacuum pump, putting the natural atmospheric pressure to sculptural use and collapsing the forms into their final shape. In a delicate balance of planning and chance each piece acquires individual character demonstrating unexpected and striking possibilities of the material.

“To me the implosion represents the inward spiral of energy to reach the core and mystery of matter, the ultimate beauty of creation,” says Hilgemann.

Hilgemann’s Park Avenue installation coincides with the first large-scale survey in the United States dedicated to the history of the German artist group ZERO (1957-1966), Countdown to Tomorrow: The International ZERO Network, 1950s-60s, which will open at the Guggenheim Museum in October 2014. As a student of Oskar Holweck (1924 – 2007), one of the early co-founders of the group, Hilgemann was directly influenced by the group’s approach and vision, particularly its interest in movement and light as artistic media. Occurring simultaneously, the two shows indicate the renewed interest in the United States in often-overlooked European movements. “The genealogy of Ewerdt Hilgemann’s work is just now becoming available to those of us who for the last 50 years or so have been nurtured on the historical accounts and critical debates that dominated art’s discourse in the U.S. and selectively excluded events and developments elsewhere,” writes critic and historian Saul Ostrow in the exhibition catalogue, which will be published later in the year.

The Hilgemann installation is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.

Ewerdt Hilgemann (1938) was born in Witten, Germany and after briefly studying at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University in Münster, he attended Werkkunstschule and the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken. In the 1960’s he had residencies at Kätelhöhn Printers in Wamel, Asterstein in Koblenz and Halfmannshof in Gelsenkirchen, Western Germany, and started to exhibit his work across Europe before moving to Gorinchem, the Netherlands in 1970. >From 1977 to 1998 Hilgemann taught Concept Development at the Sculpture Department of Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Hilgemann’s work is in public and private collections worldwide including Museum Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany; Museum Mondriaanhuis, Amersfoort, The Netherlands; Irvine Fine Arts Center, Irvine, CA; Art Field, Moscow, Russia; Vasareli Museum, Budapest, Hungary; Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands; and has had public installations from Busan, Korea to the City of West Hollywood, CA. Since 1984 the artist lives and works in Amsterdam.

Ewerdt Hilgemann is the latest in a long list of distinguished artists to exhibit on Park Avenue. Previous exhibitions have included Alice Aycock, Albert Pailey, Rafael Barrios, Deborah Butterfield, Robert Indiana, Jun Kaneko, Will Ryman, Yoshitomo Nara, and George Rickey. To view a complete history of art on Park Avenue visit www.nycgovparks.org/art and www.fundforparkavenue.org.