Alice Aycock facts for kids

Alice Aycock (born November 20, 1946) is an American artist. She is famous for her sculptures and large art installations. In the 1970s, she was one of the first artists to create "land art." This is art made directly in nature. Aycock's art often mixes ideas from architecture, machines, science, and imagination.

About Alice Aycock

Alice Aycock was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on November 20, 1946. She went to Douglass College in New Jersey and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968. This is a type of college degree.

Later, she moved to New York City. In 1971, she earned her Master of Arts degree from Hunter College. There, she learned from a famous sculptor named Robert Morris. In the early 1980s, Aycock married another artist, Dennis Oppenheim.

Alice Aycock's Artworks

Early Land Art

Aycock's first artworks were often connected to the environment. She built sculptures directly on or into the land. These artworks explored ideas about private spaces, enclosed areas, and how our bodies relate to buildings. Her land art often invited people to explore and find their way through the pieces. These early works were not meant to last forever. They were sometimes compared to ancient structures like labyrinths or Greek temples.

The Maze (1972)

One of her most famous land art pieces is Maze (1972). She built it on a farm in Pennsylvania. The Maze was 32 feet wide and made of five wooden rings, each six feet tall. People could walk through three openings to enter.

Inside, the goal was to feel a bit lost as you tried to reach the center. Aycock wanted people to feel a similar feeling of confusion when they left. She was inspired by how a compass works and by an essay that suggested the universe's center is wherever you are.

Aycock said about Maze:

• She wanted to create a moment of "panic" where getting out was all that mattered.
• She saw the maze as a series of movements, like driving on a highway.
• You couldn't see the whole thing at once; you had to remember it step by step.
• She often got lost herself and kept finding new parts of the maze.

Other Land Art Pieces

Other works like Low Building with Dirt Roof (1973) and A Simple Network of Underground Wells and Tunnels (1975) also changed natural landscapes. Aycock added human-made structures into the ground. She was one of the few women artists working in this style at the time. Her work was featured in a 2015 exhibition about women in land art.

Aycock also created art for galleries that showed a sense of danger. Sand/Fans (1971) used four large industrial fans. They were pointed at a pile of 4,000 pounds of sand. In the first version, the fan blades were uncovered, which made people feel a bit scared. In a later version (2008), the blades were caged for safety. The fans moved the sand, showing her interest in nature and science. She thought the fans would make a sand twister, but instead, they created ripples like waves.

Large-Scale Sculptures

After 1977, Aycock's art started to explore bigger ideas about how the world works. Her sculptures became more like theater sets. They combined science, technology, and spiritual ideas. These new sculptures were not meant for people to walk through.

Shifting Styles

The Beginnings of a Complex (1977) showed this change. It used building fronts and windows. The Machine That Makes the World (1979) continued this shift. It marked the start of Aycock creating very large sculptures and public art pieces.

In 1979, Aycock made How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts. This artwork was inspired by an old idea that electricity could create life, like in the book Frankenstein. The piece used wood, glass, water, lights, metal containers, and even a lemon battery connected to a bird in a bottle.

Blade Machines and Public Art

After 1982, Aycock started making "blade machines." These were sculptures with spinning, motorized metal blades. Her art often makes you think about big, complex ideas that are hard to fully understand.

Alice Aycock's 1995 work East River Roundabout near the Queensboro Bridge in New York City.

In the 1990s, Aycock began using advanced engineering and computer software to design her sculptures. She wanted to take normal building shapes and make them look unusual. Her recent works are large sculptures inspired by nature, computers, and physics. She uses high-tech materials to create complex art for public spaces.

In 2005, she created Starsifter, Galaxy, NGC 4314. This 30-foot-long sculpture was named after a galaxy far away that the Hubble Space Telescope photographed.

Her 2014 piece Park Avenue Paper Chase was installed along Park Avenue in New York City. It included seven huge sculptures made of aluminum and fiberglass. She designed them using 3-D modeling software.

Turbulence Series

In the 2010s, Aycock started her Turbulence Series. These are swirling metal sculptures that look like twisters, highways, DNA strands, or dancers. These works have been shown in galleries and museums. One piece, Twister Grande (tall) (2020), is now on permanent display at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Kansas.

Teaching and Recognition

Alice Aycock has taught art at many colleges and universities. These include the Rhode Island School of Design, Princeton University, Yale University, and the School of Visual Arts.

She has received several awards for her art:

• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1975, 1980, 1986)
• National Academician at the National Academy of Design (2013)
• Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture from The International Sculpture Center (2018)

Exhibitions and Collections

Aycock's art has been shown in many important museums and galleries around the world. These include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Her work has also been displayed in Israel, Germany, Italy, and Japan.

She has had two big shows that looked back at her career. One was organized by the Wurttembergischer Kunstverein in Germany. The other, called "Complex Visions," was at the Storm King Art Center. In 2013, an exhibition of her drawings, Alice Aycock Drawings: Some Stories Are Worth Repeating, opened at the Parrish Art Museum in New York.

You can find Aycock’s art in the collections of many famous museums. These include MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery. She has also shown her work at major art events like the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial.

Alice Aycock's large public sculptures can be seen all over the United States. Some notable examples are:

• A hanging sculpture at Dulles International Airport (2012).
• Her Star Sifter project at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
• A piece at the San Francisco Public Library.
• An outdoor sculpture at Western Washington University Public Sculpture Collection.
• A large roof sculpture for the East River Park Pavilion in New York City.
• Strange Attractor at the Kansas City International Airport.
• Ghost Ballet for the East Bank Machineworks in Nashville, Tennessee.
• A floating sculpture for Broward County, Florida.

From March to July 2014, her series of seven sculptures called Park Avenue Paper Chase were installed on the Park Avenue Malls in New York City.

Aycock is currently represented by the Marlborough Gallery in New York.

See also

In Spanish: Alice Aycock para niños