Arlington’s Museum of Contemporary Art has announced that its front lawn will be the next resting place for Zaq Landsberg’s 25-foot long “Reclining Liberty” sculpture. The sculpture, first installed by Landsberg in Manhattan in April of 2021, is modeled after the massive reclining Buddha statues found across Asia, which depict the Buddha during his final illness, preparing to enter parinirvana with a peaceful look on his face.
Landsberg, who is based in New York City, often creates large-scale, public artworks that can be found from Queens to Argentina. His merger of the iconographic Buddhist image and the classic symbol of the American Dream nudges viewers to think about what the Statue of Liberty represents in a modern United States. “I love that the work brings the Statue down to the eye level (and reach) of the public,” Blair Murphy, MoCA Arlington’s Curator of Exhibitions, said in a statement. “Its playfulness and accessibility suggest that the ideals of liberty and freedom represented by the Statue of Liberty are active, tangible, and evolving and need to be directly engaged with, debated, and defended.” Marble Angle Headstone
Marble Bathroom Sink “Reclining Liberty” will open on August 5, 2023, with a community picnic and will be displayed until July 28, 2024. You can learn more at https://mocaarlington.org/ .