Alexandra Limpert

Biography

Alexandra Limpert grew up in New York City, and she describes the city's traffic, subways, construction and restless crowds as the root of her work. She earned a BFA at Parsons and also studied at the Yale School of Art. Her steel sculptures turn the human body into lines, grids and compartments, an approach that gives her large figures an architectural quality, and she draws on the contrapposto poses of Greek and Roman sculpture.

Many pieces move. In 'Oracle' (2011–12) a hand crank opens and closes a face's metal eyelids; 'Dragonfly' (2007) spreads its wings by means of a steel rod. That mechanical fluency comes from a parallel career in the display industry: she spent years as an animation coordinator at Spaeth Design, building animated figures for department store holiday windows, and her commissions include a golden dragon for Bergdorf Goodman and mesh suitcases for a Yoko Ono installation at the Venice Biennale. Earlier she did bronze finishing for William Tucker and Ben Shahn.

Limpert has shown in New York, Greece and China, and a steel work, 'Monument II', stands at the Andres Institute of Art sculpture park. Her long relationship with Holland Tunnel includes a 2018 exhibition of kinetic flowers, figures and animals at the original Williamsburg shed, and she later invited Janet Rutkowski to co-curate 'Reclamation' in honor of founder Paulien Lethen.

Practice. Figurative and kinetic sculpture in steel, often rusted, with cranks, rods and motors that invite viewers to animate the work; she translates the human form into metal lines, grids and compartments.