One of my favorite modern-era artists is multi-medium NY genius Tom Sachs. On Tuesday night, Tom had an opening for his new works commissioned by our buddy Aby Rosen for display at Midtown building Lever House. I am proud to say that I own a few of Tom's pieces, but nothing the likes nor proportions of which were unveiled Tuesday night.
Pictured at the top is a "Hello, Kitty!" made entirely from bronze (later treated to turn white somehow), and it stands about 3-4 stories high. I ran around the party asking people to tell me how much this thing weighs (because I have a small bronze piece of Tom's that you can hold in one hand that weighs 40lbs easily). I guessed around 2 tons. Later, to my (still) disbelief, I was informed that it weighs 8 TONS. They had to haul it across Park Avenue with a crane. I wish I was there for that, people must have thought it was Thanksgiving again with a giant Hello, Kitty float.
One of the things Tom has been doing lately is taking interesting objects and casting them directly in bronze and finishing them so that they are identical in size and form to the real objects (unlike bronzed baby-booties say, which just are like a hollow wax mold). The Hello, Kitty!'s on the other hand are also created in bronze, but they are cast from hand-made models that Tom makes out of foam-core type construction material. So, also included in this show were a set of bronze skateboard quarter ramps (which Aby's kids were delighted to be skating on in the lobby of the building), and various stacks of bronzed car batteries (not sure why but they looked cool). 
Also, there was this polished bronze mini-garbage dumpster. What a nifty wastebasket! Additionally, the smaller (probably 10' tall) Kitty fountain, complete with water shooting out of its eyes. Go, TOM!
(Please excuse the photo quality, I only had my Blackberry camera).
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