Paul Villinski

Paul Villinski (born 1960) is an American sculptor best known for his large-scale installations of individual butterflies made from aluminum cans found on the streets on New York City. “A pilot of sailplanes, paragliders and single-engine airplanes,[1] metaphors of flight and soaring often appear in his work. With a lifelong concern for environmental issues, his work frequently re-purposes discarded materials.”[2] He is represented in New York by Morgan Lehman Gallery.

Biography

Paul Villinski has created large-scale artworks since the mid-eighties. Villinski was born in York, Maine, in 1960, son of an Air Force navigator. He has lived and worked in New York City since 1982. He briefly attended Phillips Exeter Academy and the Massachusetts College of Art, and graduated with a BFA with honors from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1984. He lives and works in Long Island City, New York, alongside his partner, painter Amy Park, and their son Lark.[3]

Works
Comforter (1994) at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC in 2022

Villinski is best known for his sculptural wall works. In the early nineties he began collecting discarded beer cans and cutting them into butterfly shapes.[4] His wall works utilize hundreds of individually cut butterflies mounted into different organic compositions. He has also developed works to include other motifs of flight including bird sculptures, first made from abandoned record albums found after Hurricane Katrina.[5] Later he transformed his entire record collection into artworks.[6] Much of Villinski's work, including his butterfly sculptures and Comforter (1994), grapple with the artist's struggle with addiction and substance abuse.[7]

Emergency Response Studio

Villinski created a mobile artist studio by salvaging a Federal Emergency Management Agency-style trailer and transforming it into a mobile, sustainable live/work space.[8] His intent was that the trailer be used to house displaced artists or enable artists to be dispatched into post-disaster contexts. The work was created after a visit to post-Katrina New Orleans.[9] The project was first exhibited at Prospect.1 New Orleans, the largest international biennial of contemporary art ever organized in the U.S. up until that point in 2008.[10] The trailer was later a subject of a solo exhibition at Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, Texas and travelled to Ballroom Marfa, in Marfa, Texas; Wesleyan University's Zilkha Gallery; and Middletown, Connecticut, and participated in the New Museum's "Festival of Ideas for the New City", in New York City.

Exhibitions

His work has been included in numerous exhibitions nationally, including:

Public works

The New York Percent for Art program has commissioned "SkyCycles," three full-scale "flying bicycles" to be installed at Ocean Breeze, a new parks and recreation track and field facility located on Staten Island.[28] The City of New Haven Percent for Art Program commissioned “Dreamdesk,” a flying school desk with 18’ wingspan which was installed at the entrance to the East Rock Magnet School in 2014.[29]

Collections

Villinski is collected by many public, private, and corporate institutions and individuals, including:

Corporate collections include Fidelity Investments, Microsoft, Progressive Insurance, the Cleveland Clinic, ADP, McCann Erickson International, New York Life, and Ritz-Carlton.

Recognitions, awards, and residencies

References
  1. Little, Elizabeth (21 September 2007). "Powered by the Air Over the Hudson Valley". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  2. "Paul Villinski". Morgan Lehman Gallery. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  3. "Biography". Artnet. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  4. Battaglia, Andy (1 October 2014). "Artist's Metamorphosis Takes Flight in Chelsea". The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  5. "Paul Villinski: Burst". The McNay Museum. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  6. Getlen, Larry. "A Tower-ing Work of Art". New York Post. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  7. Doyon, Marie (20 January 2022). "Market Street Studio: Artists Amy Park and Paul Villinski Alight in Ellenville". Chronogram. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
  8. Kiniry, Laura. "Trailer (Re)Made". Make-Digital.com. Make Magazine.
  9. "Paul Villinski: Emergency Response Studio". ricegallery.org. Rice University Art Gallery. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  10. "Prospect 1. New Orleans". prospectneworleans.org. Archived from the original on 9 May 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  11. "Paul Villinski: Lift". austinartprojects.com. Austin Art Projects. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  12. "Paul Villinski: Burst". The McNay Museum. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  13. "New Piece at McNay Art Museum". KSAT12. Archived from the original on 19 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  14. Battaglia, Andy (1 October 2014). "Artist's Metamorphosis Takes Flight in Chelsea". The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  15. Gauss, Daniel. "Butterfly Machine: Paul Villinski at Morgan Lehman Gallery". artefuse.com. Art Fuse Magazine. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  16. "Paul Villinski: Paradigm". morganlehmangallery.com. Morgan Lehman Gallery. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  17. "Re: Collection". madmuseum.org. Museum of Arts and Design. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  18. "Material Transformations". mmfa.org. Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  19. "Making Mends". bellevuearts.org. Bellevue Arts Museum.
  20. "'Passage' fits scale of Blanton's Atrium". Austin 360. 19 November 2011. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  21. "Paul Villinski: Passage". blantonmuseum.org. Blanton Museum of Art. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  22. Genocchio, Benjamin (16 October 2009). "Taking Conceptual Art on the Road". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  23. "Streetfest: Emergency Response Studio". newmuseum.org. New Museum Ideas City. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  24. Jackson, Candace (15 January 2015). "Running on Empty: Artists explore abandoned spaces". The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  25. "Paul Villinski: Emergency Response Studio". ricegallery.org. Rice University Art Gallery. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  26. MacCash, Doug (13 October 2008). "International Contemporary Art Exhibit to open in N.O." The Times-Picayune.
  27. Gurewitsch, Matthew (14 February 2008). "On West 53rd Street, MoMa Has No Monopoly on Art". The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  28. "Highlights from AIR Alumni Paul Villinski". www.airserenbe.com. Archived from the original on 19 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  29. Bailey, Melissa (2 August 2011). "Flying Desk Wins". New Haven Independent. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  30. "Paul Villinski". madmuseum.org. Archived from the original on 19 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  31. Browning, Dominique (10 December 2008). "A Collection in Need of Definition". The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  32. "Site Specific Projects - North Terminal - Gate D19". miami-airport.com. Miami International Airport.
  33. "New hospitals to feature museum-quality art collection". uofmhealth.org. University of Michigan. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  34. "Highlights from AIR Alumni Paul Villinski". www.airserenbe.com. Archived from the original on 19 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  35. "programs & highlights" (PDF). serenbeinstitute.com. Serenbe Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  36. "Paul Villinski: Waste Not, Want Not". socratessculpturepark.org. Socrates Sculpture Park. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  37. "Alumni List". ucrossfoundation.org. Ucross Foundation. Archived from the original on 11 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  38. "Visual Artists". millaycolony.org. Millay Colony for the Arts. Archived from the original on 21 August 2008. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
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