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Stainless Steel Sculptures Installed In Leonia

LEONIA, N.J. -- Leonia's Station Parkway gained some large additions on Sunday, with the loan of five stainless-steel sculptures.

Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Photo Credit: Barbara Mitrani
Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Photo Credit: Barbara Mitrani
Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Photo Credit: Barbara Mitrani
Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Photo Credit: Barbara Mitrani
Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Five sculptures are on loan to Leonia, on display in the Station Parkway park.

Photo Credit: Barbara Mitrani

The pieces are works by German-born sculptor Ewerdt Hilgemann, part of the exhibit "Moments in a Stream," which was on display on Manhattan's Park Avenue in the fall of 2014.

"We are very excited and honored that Leonia was selected as a site to display them, on loan, for a while," said Sculpture for Leonia President Barbara Mitrani.

The works are created through an "implosion" process, using a vacuum technique. Hilgemann fabricates perfect, geometrically pure stainless steel forms, meticulously welded and polished -- and then slowly pulls the air out with a vacuum pump, collapsing the forms into their final shape.

"To me, the implosion represents the inward spiral of energy to reach the core and mystery of matter, the ultimate beauty of creation," Hilgemann said.

In 2014, concurrent with pieces' exhibit on Park Avenue, the Guggenheim Museum presented an extensive program about this artist and others who comprised an art movement in Europe called the International ZERO Network, which was active in the '50s and '60s.

"It has been said, in the context of this movement, that the imploded but once-perfect structures created by the artist reflect both the industrial landscape of Hilgemann's youth in Germany, and also America's current post-industrial state: a polished facade sharply collapsing from the inside," Mitrani said.

For more information on Sculpture for Leonia, visit its website or Facebook page.

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