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Weingarten Art Group recognized for best in public art: Boys Cry Too is a sprawling, monumental installation

Americans for the Arts has bestowed an important award to the Weingarten Art Group for Boys Cry Too, a temporary installation at Hermann Park.

The collaboration received national recognition as one of the best public art projects of 2015.

“Ribbons of primary blue, yellow and red snake through irregularly shaped forms in lavender, green, orange and turquoise, laying a kind of Abstract Expressionist gesture on the earth. It takes on another layer of poetry if you stand on the bridge above the concrete-lined bayou and observe all the catfish wiggling and winding their way through the water.”

Houston Chronicle’s arts, design and culture editor Molly Glentzer vividly described Boys Cry Too by Orly Genger.

[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Spanning the genres of craft and fine art, Genger mines the intimate, domestic and traditionally feminine practice of knitting to create sprawling, monumental installations.[/pullquote]

The monumental temporary public art installation, which was on view near Brays Bayou on the Bayou Parkland side of Hermann Park through March 2015, measures 100 feet in length and is crafted out of 80 rolls of climbing rope — what appears to be miles and miles of material crocheted into a joyful collage of unpredictable shapes and colors.

The Weingarten Art Group partnered with the Herman Park Conservancy for this extraordinary venture, one that was part of the park’s centennial public art project, Art in the Park.

The New York-based artist re-worked a previous 2009 piece for Hermann Park’s new landscaping. Spanning the genres of craft and fine art, Genger mines the intimate, domestic and traditionally feminine practice of knitting to create sprawling, monumental installations. With the help of assistants, Genger looms, crochets, weaves and knots heavy twine over the course of many months to create a single work.