Many of us remember on a windy day going to the park to fly a kite.
We also might recall the colorful piece of fabric attached to a long string getting stuck in a tree.
Bringing back those moments, artists Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis created an installation of 200 kites that appear to be crashed and trapped in more than 80 trees along Liberty and Penn Avenues between Sixth and Ninth Streets throughout the Cultural District in Downtown Pittsburgh.
“A Sudden Gust of Wind” officially opened for Friday’s Gallery Crawl. The outdoor public art display was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.
“Lenka Clayton and Philip Andrew Lewis are some of the most significant contemporary artists living and working in Pittsburgh,” said Anastasia James, director of galleries and public art for the Trust. ‘This project encourages audience members of all ages to reconnect with their inner child. These kites represent moments of joy. There are no barriers to seeing this art. It is for the public. Kites are a universal symbol of carefree days and getting a kite stuck in a tree.”
Courtesy of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
Artists Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis of Troy Hill created an installation of 200 kites that appear to be crashed and trapped in more than 80 trees along Liberty and Penn Avenues between Sixth and Ninth Streets throughout the Cultural District in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Internationally renowned artists, the couple created the large-scale art in their Troy Hill studio. The kites are not the plastic or fabric most people associate with kites. They are made from aluminum aircraft grade material and are lightweight and flexible and strong. Each kite tail is made of ripstop nylon.
“We hope one will catch your eye and you will see the others to expand the vision,” Clayton said.
The kites are attached by steel cables. The couple enlisted the experience of tree experts to make sure the art is tree friendly.
They did a much smaller installation in St. Louis — one tree and 29 kites. They reached out the Trust to inquire about doing the exhibition.
“It is one of the largest public art projects in Pittsburgh,” James said. “It encompasses a 14-block radius and it is one of the most ambitious we’ve done.”
The kites are 34 x 28 inches and are four-sided, with a flat shape, but bent and crumpled in the tree limbs. They will remain through all four seasons creating a different view each time of the year.
There is no starting or ending point to the installation.
The tail of the kite draws you in, Clayton said. Each kite and tail is unique and individual, but it’s one piece of art. They collaborated with other local companies on materials. They met in California at an art center. He is from Memphis, Tenn; she’s from England.
“We are meeting people in life (as they walk by),” Clayton said. “They share stories of when they flew kites.”
It took them four weeks to install.
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop | TribLive
If you look closely, you can see multi-colored kite-shaped aluminum sculptures that appear to be accidentally lodged in the branches of trees in Downtown Pittsburgh.
The kites are blue, red, orange and pink. One is black with sparkles. Their fabric tails are animated by the weather, tangling over time within the branches.
The kites can be interpreted as a colorful aftermath of a celebratory event — a kite festival gone wrong, or a “sudden gust of wind” that broke the string tethering a kite to its owner, according to the couple.
“Kites are a simple thing,” Lewis said. “You lift them and they fly. The real challenge is to see all of them. We know how many are here and we don’t always see all of them. We hope this will inspire people to look up and to look deeper.”
Clayton’s work has been shown at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and The Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland.
Lewis is an interdisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media including photography, video objects, and sound. He has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally.
The couple runs a project space in Troy Hill called Gallery Closed, which is open 24/7 via two street-facing windows.
When the kites were being installed, people would ask the artists if they were getting the kite out of the tree, Lewis said.
”It’s about the initial thought of thinking the kite is stuck and then realizing there are more and more kites,” Lewis said. “People asked us if we were removing a kite stuck in a tree, or is that a kite stuck in the tree? When we tell them about what we are doing those memories come back. It’s very nostalgic.”
Related programs will be presented by the Trust during the exhibition’s run beginning with the Gallery Crawl in the Cultural District on Friday , the EQT Children’s Festival in May and the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival in June.
Guests attending “The Kite Runner” on the Trust’s 2023-2024 PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh season, May 7-12, may also sense a connection with the exhibit, which is also an inspiration for a July exhibition at 820 Liberty Gallery, Downtown.
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop is a TribLive reporter covering the region’s diverse culinary scene and unique homes. She writes features about interesting people and a weekly column about things to do in Pittsburgh. The Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist began her career as a sports reporter. She has been with the Trib for 26 years and is the author of “A Daughter’s Promise.” She can be reached at [email protected].
