Sculptor Jen Lewin showed Ursa Major
and Ursa Minor at Burning Man. Image: Jen Lewin Studio People crossing the Gowanus Canal will quickly find a radiant 30-foot-tall polar bear. Standing next to it will be a second mirror-encrusted 13-foot cub. This set of sculptures is the work of Bushwick-based artist Jen Lewin, and they are set to live completely on a brand-new public parkway along the Superfund website.
New Yorkers who party on the Playa may recognize them. Lewin debuted the cub at Burning Man in 2022 but built him here utilizing reams of recycled plastic left over from a project that reused ocean garbage. She was depressed about climate modification, the state of the world, whatever. That’s Ursa Minor. Ursa Major, the 30-footer, came later on– a mom for the cub. Larger, more inward-looking, and less cheerful, it has a hollow structure that’s walled with mirrors engraved with pictures of extinct species. The pieces withstood the components at Black Rock and the occasional knock from a tech brother on a dirt bike. “I’m one of the couple of artists who use Burning Guy like a research-and-development laboratory,” says Lewin. “If I can take a huge piece out there and it endures, that’s a really good test.”
< img data-src ="https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/17b/1f3/ef434fcac13716958a40e1c725fac96694-TheUrsas-JenLewinStudio-2023-Shotby-Dunc.rsquare.w570.jpg"width=" 570 "height="570" src="https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/17b/1f3/ef434fcac13716958a40e1c725fac96694-TheUrsas-JenLewinStudio-2023-Shotby-Dunc.rsquare.w570.jpg"/ > The works at Burning Guy.
Both bears radiance in the evening, and Lewin will tune their colors to mesh with Gowanus. Jen Lewin Studio. The works at Burning Guy. Both bears radiance at night, and Lewin will tune their colors to mesh with
Gowanus. Jen Lewin Studio. As for how they ended up in Gowanus, the 2021 rezoning incentivized designers to include public art, loosening the requirements for green space along the brand-new public path. (One sculpture equates to 100 square feet less of lawn, trees, or shrubs.) With 654 rental houses, Nevins Landing, in between Carroll and Union Streets, remains in among the canal’s greatest new developments, Gowanus Wharf, and among its developers, Sam Charney, is putting in a museum courtyard’s worth of public art, the outcome of an open call run by Arts Gowanus. In addition to Lewin’s bears, there will be a small home by Tom Fruin, a smiley figure by Austin Lee, and one of Adam Parker Smith’s eerie stone cupids. The story of the Ursas “resonated with me,” says Charney, who had actually currently worked with Lewin on a light setup she constructed for his building in Long Island City and discovered the scale of the bears “sublime.”
Nevins Landing, to the left of the canal in this shot, has a public pathway where the bears will soon be a landmark. Picture: Charney Companies
But people strolling the canal may simply see a media event. At Burning Guy, Lewin was surprised to see that some Burners didn’t seem too moved by the wall of death inside Ursa Major‘s sanctum. Instead of peaceful reflection, they postured for wedding images. “That was not something I anticipated,” she says.
Contemplating termination? Or positioning for images … Picture: Jen Lewin Studio
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