Edward G. Fitzgerald is something of an artistic surgeon — and people can watch some of his meticulous work Thursday afternoon to restore a noted late, Modernist sculptor’s work.
“Sure — you could call me that,” Fitzgerald said. “Sometimes people also call me a building doctor.”
Officially, he’s a senior associate at New York City’s Jablonski Building Conservation Inc. that restores everything from buildings to subway stations to — at the moment — the Brooklyn Bridge.
Currently, Fitzgerald is in Columbus in an effort to restore Italian sculptor Costantino Nivola’s weathered and badly damaged concrete horses that were made and displayed since 1964 at the Wise Towers Plaza, a public housing authority complex on New York’s Upper West Side.
Part of that restoration begun earlier this week includes using one of the sculptor’s near-exact 1970 fiberglass horses from Richards Elementary School. At 4 p.m Thursday at the soon-to-open Columbus Propeller Inc. maker space, Fitzgerald will be removing the mold from one of the three horses from Richards. He will then use that next week to create new horse model pieces to replace the 12 New York City horses’ worn-down eyes, ears, and even legs that were mysteriously and inexplicably chopped off last year, according to a story in The New York Times.
Richard McCoy, executive director of Landmark Columbus Foundation, which cares for the city’s noted art and architecture, decided only days ago to make this a public event.
“This is a pretty rare opportunity to get a peek into the creative process,” McCoy said.
McCoy also has been a proponent of that whenever celebrated architects selected for the Exhibit Columbus exhibition make their presentations on planned, temporary installations.
He also felt this would be a good way to have the public connect to Propeller, a lab for hands-on learning, experimentation and innovation officially opening March 26. The 9,000-square foot space, located on the Airpark Columbus College Campus, is home to woodworking, metalworking, and sewing shops, as well as robotics, electronics, and 3-D printing labs.
Bryan Rushton, Columbus Propeller president, sees this as a great, pre-opening informal gathering.
“I’m hoping that this is one way to demonstrate the breadth of activities and uses we can offer to the community at large,” Rushton said. “It’s really supposed to be for all kinds of things, from economic projects to the arts.”
Some news accounts have referred to Nivola, who died in 1988 at age 77, as “a Picasso of the people.” For instance, he was considered a pioneer for bringing art to public housing areas. Much of the art he created in New York City has either been damaged or destroyed.
“He’s really always been much bigger in Europe than he has been in the United States,” McCoy said.
