The new Cincinnati Art Museum Art Climb is an asymmetrical, zig-zagging flight of stairs that emerges from the sidewalk near the intersection of Eden Park Drive and Gilbert Avenue. Flanked on either side by greenery as it weaves through a hillside, it totals 164 steps and nine stories with 16 landings. Throughout the climb are light beam structures, meant to guide users toward the museum.
The stairway also includes four “art plazas,” which the CAM’s Director of Marketing and Communications Jill Dunne says are “earmarked for artwork.”
Those plazas will see their first installations, to be placed within the next two months.
The museum is getting a sculpture from artist Chakaia Booker and two pieces from Hamilton's Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum’s collection.
“Pyramid Hill is thrilled to partner with the Cincinnati Art Museum on the Art Climb,” said Sean FitzGibbons, Pyramid Hill’s Executive Director. “This partnership is the perfect example of how art institutions can work together to complement our individual missions. We are excited to share sculptures from our collection to be showcased in such a beautiful new addition to downtown Cincinnati.”
The work from Booker, called LBD Duty Free, is a "16-foot-high twisted sculpture made of discarded rubber tires and stainless steel," says the museum. This piece will go closest to the intersection of Gilbert Avenue and Eden Park Drive.
Then, the borrowed piece from Pyramid Hill, Barton Rubenstein’s Skybound — a brushed stainless steel, Modernist sculpture that stretches 30 feet high — will be situated at the top of the Art Climb.
Pyramid Hill's other work, Tony Rosenthal’s Cube, described as a "formidable matte blackened steel sculpture measuring 9 feet across and set on its corner at a seemingly gravity defying angle," will be placed on the highest landing.
The Cincinnati Art Museum is located at 953 Eden Park Drive, Mount Adams/Eden Park. More info: cincinnatiartmuseum.org.
