New Public Art Sculpture Scheduled For Governors Island

The West Harlem Art Fund and NY Artist Equity Association will present sculptor Miguel Otero Fuentes and his latest work XOXO (Hugs and Kisses - Hugs and Kisses) on Governors Island this spring in Nolan Park.

XOXO is an open heart made of two crossed circles. The sculpture balances at an angle and is made of hollow curved aluminum members with strategically located internal steel weights.

"XOXO" emerges from the artist's 8 year sculpture practice informed by an extensive experimentation and study of circular forms and their boundless capacity to exist in space and impart universal narratives. Additionally, Fuentes draws from his university training in architecture, digital fabrication, and 9 years of work experience translating architectural designs into buildable solutions that serve the technical aspects of a project while preserving the intent and spirit of the original design concepts.

"XOXO" is for everyone. Its points of entry and interaction require no special training or prior knowledge and instead draw upon the human instinctual urge to be social beings

Ideally, the work should be situated in a public space that is barrier free and accessible to a diverse audience.

"XOXO" is an interactive installation that invites the public to perform as shapes of love within a heart-shaped opening framed by two interlocking circles. Beyond the physical presence of this proposal, the project remains forever in transition as it displays ephemeral interactions with the public and it extends into digital space when its turned to pixels and shared/ stored in digital social platforms. Public interaction is the primary material used to convert this sculpture into a multi-dimensional sphere of connection and unity.

Sculptor Background

Miguel Otero Fuentes is a Puerto Rico-born USA migrant, university trained architect, and self-taught sculptor specializing in façade system design, 3D modeling and facilitating collaboration between design and engineering teams. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was awarded the T. Gordon Little Fellowship, participated in design-build studios, worked as a teaching assistant abroad and was involved in research in the areas of digital design and fabrication. During his academic career he won three first place prizes including the distinguished Portman Prize. He also holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree (with honors) from the University of Puerto Rico.

From 2015 until the start of 2022, Otero Fuentes worked as a facade designer in a New York based engineering firm. He was involved in a range of high profile projects ranging from skyscrapers to cultural institutions such as museums and academic facilities. In these projects, he worked implementing groundbreaking facade design technologies using a range of materials such as concrete, terracotta, stone, glass, aluminum and other metals.

At present, Otero Fuentes works full time in his Brooklyn studio taking on architectural design commissions and sculpture projects experimenting with material, dimension, number, light, space, form, and meaning.