sculpture
Concrete On Main Street
Modern Design Exhibit & Rosendale Retrospective
Saturday, May 16th @ 3 PM -- Willow Kiln Park, Rosendale, NY
*Funded by a grant from the Ulster County Cultural Services and Promotion Fund
Rosendale, a picturesque town in the Hudson Valley, is here because of what is beneath it. In 1825, the discovery of Natural Cements made Rosendale, NY famous and for a century Rosendale mined, cooked and sold its cement at a furious pace to a growing country that was ravenously expanding.
Rosendale Cements became world renowned and used in the construction of some of the most enduring landmarks of the nation: The Brooklyn Bridge, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the wings of the U.S. Capitol, the lower 152' of the Washington Monument, the Croton Aqueduct and dams, the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels, the New York State Thruway, and thousands of other public works projects. By the early 20th Century, Rosendale Cement was replaced by Portland Cement. The canal that ran though town transporting coal and cement closed, and Rosendale's economy slowed.
On Saturday May 16th, 2009 @ 3 pm, Rosendale resident and modern designer, Johnny Poux, will use the material that made Rosendale famous in uncommon ways in the exhibit, Concrete on Main Street. While concrete exudes the ancient quality of stone it also references this town's history and the industrial flavor of modernism, making it a fitting material for this show. Poux will design and fabricate sizable cast concrete primitive shapes and forms, totems and pillars, which will be installed into Rosendale's Willow Kiln Park amidst a backdrop of old cement kilns.
The industrial archaeology of Rosendale is everywhere. Giant stone and brick cement kilns haunt the hillsides and abandoned quarries as they slowly degenerate. In town, the abandoned train trestle is a prominent presence, looming approximately one hundred feet above the Rondout Creek, which runs parallel to Main Street. The architectural relics that hover in this town are reminders of diligent people, steamrolled by an economic boom and bust. They were not heroes, just citizens surviving. This project will create a monument of sorts for this town with a past, a present, and a future, and its ordinary hardworking people.