Robert Bangiola

Open studio will be outdoors: 12 noon & 4pm: participate in and interactive installation

Open Using slender trunks of invasive Norway maples that he harvests around Hudson, New York, Bangiola, balances together structures which, encountered in their outdoor settings, trigger instant curiosity and speculation. A career veteran of arts management, including stints at Bard College, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and as a cultural envoy for the U.S. State Department, Bangiola has been creating and installing his work in the Hudson Valley since 2017. An avid outdoorsman who has hiked all 2,190 miles of the Appalachian Trail, he was clearing some forest land of choking vines and unwanted tree species for a friend. In the process, he accumulated long poles of Norway maples and was inspired to build his first large-scale sculpture. When the property changed hands, the new owner, an arts patron, was enamored of his work. “How long do they last?” he wondered.

“I was always attracted to art that has a clarity of line,” he says. “For a long time I called my sculptures sketches because that’s what they look like in an open landscape. But they are three-dimensional and change shape depending on where you stand. Large or small, on paper or using massive tree trunks, they become a conversation with nature and an expression of balance.” Studio Hudson —