(Cazenovia, NY – June 2013) Sarah Webster, Director of the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, announced that Champagne House Perrier-Jouët has donated a significant sculpture to the Art Park in Cazenovia.
Last year, Perrier-Jouët partnered with famed contemporary artist Michael Kalish to create this piece as homage to their iconic Perrier-Jouët bottle. Kalish’s sculpture “Belle Époque” is an interpretation of a beautiful garden and transcends the bottle’s timeless design by French artist Emile Gallé.
The three-dimensional sculpture stands at 14-and-a-half feet and consists of two swooping anemone stems created out of stainless steel and bent aluminum tubing. The anemone flower petals are hand cut layers of aluminum threaded with gold metal piping from over 100 Perrier-Jouët champagne cages, and the base is inlaid with hundreds of ground champagne corks. An intricate process of painting and baking the pieces in large ovens rendered the powder-coated pearl white surface durable and weather resistant. Once installed, “Belle Époque” will join approximately 100 other sculptures on the Art Park’s 104 acres. “We are overwhelmingly excited to celebrate the arrival of this beautiful and significant work,” said Webster. “We are also extremely honored that Perrier-Jouët selected Stone Quarry Hill Art Park to be the permanent home for ‘Belle Époque’.”
Kalish is an internationally acclaimed artist and sculptor with representation in galleries from Los Angeles to Stockholm, NY to Hong Kong.
Kalish has been featured on television, as well as in The New York Times, People, Art in America and USA Today. The subjects of Kalish’s work reflect a broad sampling of American culture, including portraits of popular, political, and cultural icons; as well as distinctive modern pop sculptures made solely from recycled materials — many through his signature medium, the license plate. His unique sculptures can be viewed in many museums and are highly sought-after by private collectors.