2008 Woodie Awards
'Freedom Birds' soar at Krentzman Quad exhibit
Maggie Cassidy
Issue date: 9/24/07 Section: The Inside
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Designed by Rafael Consuegra and Ernesto Montenegro, the brightly-colored sculptures are part of Northeastern Creates, Northeastern's new initiative to bring art to campus, said Glen Summit, from the advancement, communications and events department.
"This is a first. We've never had the 'Freedom Birds' [by Consuegra] or the bronze sculptures [by Montenegro]," Summit said. "Northeastern is becoming so much more focused on art that these artists came to campus."
Both artists have strong relations with Northeastern benefactors Stanley Young and Bob Shure, the creator of the Cy Young statue, and thus were seen as good candidates to feature works in Krentzman, Summit said.
Consuegra already has a permanent place on campus - his sculpture El Gallo, a red and black freedom bird Young bought on a visit to Miami 10 years ago, stands in Sculpture Park.
"I consider myself a creator," Consuegra said on the phone from his home in Miami. "I feel that the real art is a gift, you are born with it. As you go through life, those things that you have inside when you come in touch with nature, with the human nature, with the stars, with the dilemma of good and evil and things like this, I have a tendency to put it in a three-dimensional form."
Made of flat, geometric pieces of metal pieced together and painted yellow, red and black, Consuegra said he wants his "Freedom Birds" to begin a dialogue about what is going on in the world.
"Today, most of my work is concerned with what makes the human being better," he said. "The art today has to do something today that makes everybody think."
Consuegra, who emigrated from Cuba to escape communism to start a family in Miami, said Northeastern's campus is the perfect place to feature his art.
"I was very happy in Boston. It's a young city of students, and students have something in common: hope," he said, noting that the vertical lines in "Freedom Birds" represent optimism and faith in the future.
"Those 'Freedom Birds' are a reflection of a feeling for liberty," he said. "[Each sculpture] resembles a standing bird starting to take off."
In addition to ideas of progress, hope and freedom, he said his current work deals with cloning and the law versus justice, saying that "Justice is perfect, but the law manipulates [it]."
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