Fusion Art: Mixed Media and Metal Sculpture on Stanton Street, NYC

I've walked by this building numerous times over the years, and was never quite sure what it was, other than an eyeful of colorful sculpture adorning the front of this storefront on Stanton Street in New York City. Every time I've walked by, it's been closed up and I haven't seen any signs of activity. However, now I've learned that it's referred to as the Fusion Art Museum and has regular exhibitions there! I'll have to make a return visit to see a show ... in the meantime, I wanted to share with you the unique and intriguing metal sculpture on the exterior of the building that first engages the viewer from the street.

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I can't say that I've heard of "Fusion Art" as a known style of art, so I'm trying to learn a little more about it. According to the museum's website, "fusion art" is another name for "multidisciplinary art," but what exactly is that? "Multidisciplinary" means "combining or involving several academic disciplines or professional specializations in an approach to a topic or problem." A definition of "fusion" includes "the act of melting things together." In this case, the art we see on the outside includes several art disciplines, such as sculpture, painting, graffiti, found objects, and assemblage, and they do seemed "fused" together into one overall artwork. Let's take a closer look at a few things that caught my attention below.

Below left: I like the guy parachuting into this scene, like he's landing on top of this sculptural mountain. If you look back at the picture above, he's coming into the scene at the top left corner. Below right, I notice the soccer ball, and to the right of that, the pedal and crank of a bicycle, and above to the right of that is something that looks like a small bomb! Also, if you look closely on the lower left side of this picture, you'll see the street artist Fumero's "family" icon, which we've seen before on this site.

From what I can gather online, it seems this sculptural installation is the work of Shalom Tomas Neuman, a Czech-born American multimedia artist who is the founder of this museum. He has taught art at Pratt, Parsons and The Cooper Union, and moved into this building at 57 Stanton Street in 1984, using what is now the museum gallery space as his studio and living upstairs. Neuman lived on Stanton well into the 1990s but eventually moved out, leaving the property to Deborah Fries, who is now director of the Fusion Art Museum. Here's two more detailed views of the exterior sculpture installation:

Here's another detailed view, in which you can see part of an iron, a bicycle wheel, and a drawing of a platypus named "Platy π," as in "Platy Pie," but using the math symbol for pi.

To learn more about Fusion Arts check out the website here.