Mission Accomplished...the late Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects,...

T he recently completed headquar-ters for the United States Missionto the United Nations, in New

York, is a paean to American diplomacyand democracy—as well as Americanart. The 26-story building, designed bythe late Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey

Siegel & Associates Archi tects, housesover 180 works by the country’s mostrenowned artists—Robert Rauschenberg,Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, EdRuscha, and James Rosenquist, to namea few—many of whom offered their artfor free.The artists’ generosity is a testament

to the nonprofit organization in chargeof placing artworks in American em -bassies around the world, the Founda -tion for Art and Preservation inEmbassies (FAPE), whose art advisorycommittee is currently chaired by RobertStorr, dean of the Yale School of Art.

Founded in 1986 by four wives of for-mer ambassadors, the foundation hascollected works by more than 200American artists, dispersed to over 140countries. By the time FAPE chair JoCarole Lauder approached Storr to getadvice about art commissions for

embassies, some ten years ago, theorganization had been allocating art tofar-flung consulates for over a decade.“There are some circumstances whereone may not want to work for the gov-ernment,” says Storr. “But it was clearthat FAPE was a very mixed group interms of political orientation—there wasno political propaganda at stake—andthat it was directly about what wasinteresting to me, which is the art.”The collection for the U.S. Mission

presented a particular challenge forStorr, who had to wade through a poolof gifts from patrons and board mem-

bers. Un sat isfied with what was athand, he reached out to several artiststo ask for additional works. LyndaBenglis offered her favorite artwork,D’Arrest (2009), an orange, squigglysurfaced half-globe made of polyure -thane, which had been installed aboveher bed. “The whole energy of FAPE isone of sharing,” Benglis says, “and moreand more people are beginning to real-ize that art is a tool for communicatingand for politics. Art does give out ener-gy.” Her piece hangs in the 70-foot-highrotunda on the 22nd floor, below adome that has been covered in rich bluewith thin red stripes, conceived by SolLeWitt, and across from Ron Gorchov’ssite-specific Totem, a 19-foot obelisk of

conjoined canvases painted inthe colors of UN members’flags.When choosing where to

place the artworks, Storr andhis colleagues at FAPE had towork closely with the architectsand the State Department. Thebuilding, says Robert Siegel,the lead architect on the proj-ect after the passing of hispartner, “has a higher level ofcriteria than a federal court-house, in terms of protection—particularly so because it issituated right in the middle of acity, sitting almost literally on acurb on First Avenue” and East45th Street. The security crite-ria meant that the structurecould have no exterior claddingthat could act as shrapnel inthe event of an explosion. The

firm settled on a “monolithic” concretetower. Siegel is particularly proud of thelobby area, where passersby can see theblack angular shapes of a Calder sculp-ture that sharply contrast with thecurved architectural space.“You are dealing with a government

building so there are a lot of restric-tions,” Storr says of the installationprocess. But, he insists, “what the StateDepartment did not do is tell us whatthe art should be.” �

Nana Asfour is an arts-and-culture writerbased in New York.

50 January 2012 ARTnews

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Mission AccomplishedCurators, architects, and the State Department

collaborated to showcase American art at the U.S.

Mission to the United Nations BY NANA ASFOUR

The rotunda on the 22nd floor of the new United States Mission to the United Nationsfeatures works by Ron Gorchov, Sol LeWitt, and Lynda Benglis (left to right).�

*NW Art of Democracy Jan 2012_Layout 1 11/28/11 4:54 PM Page 2