"One day I saw a street light in New York that with a simple change of lights could stop, guide, control, and lead the aggressive crowds of New York. That a red light made them stop and a green light made them move seemed to me an amazing thing that reminded me of Greek gods…That’s how I see the machine… "
—Edgar Negret
The sculptures of Edgar Negret (b. 1920, Popayán, Colombia - d. 2012, Bogotá, Colombia) are defined by a careful craftsmanship that transforms aluminum into elegant forms filled with movement. Strips of reflective metal become red and black ribbons twisting and turning, the matte coating giving the formerly reflective material an opacity and finish the texture of velvet. With an industrial sleekness accented by visible nuts, bolts, and screws, Negret realized within the materials of the urban environment connections to spiritual practices as well as to deep-seated history. An expansive thinker, the titles of Negret’s sculptures over the course of his career include specific references to manmade marvels, nascent space exploration, nature, pre-Columbian civilization, and Native American cultural traditions. Within the graceful arcs and sweeps of his sensuous sculptures, Negret gathered together in synthesis the sacred and the profane; the past and the present; nature and modernity.