Sculpture Ribbon Cutting

The public is invited to join members of the Traverse City Arts Commission for a ribbon cutting on Wednesday, June 26, at 5pm. Celebrate the work of Michigan artist Robert Sestok on the Boardman Lake Trail. Join the TC Arts Commission at 5pm for a ribbon cutting ceremony and up-close look at these beautiful installations. Ride or walk for brownie points (meet at Oryana).

The Traverse City Arts Commission is pleased to unveil four sculptures, Machine (2009),
Thirdman (2017), Van Brunt St. (2010), and Remembering Gordon Newton (2019), by
Michigan artist, Robert Sestok. The welded steel sculptures were installed on Friday, June 21,
along the designated “Boardman Lake Art Trail” at the east end of Tenth Street near Boardman
Lake. The Boardman Lake Art Trail will serve as public space with rotating exhibitions. The
Sestok sculptures will be on display for two years.

Born in Detroit, Robert Sestok has been creating work since 1967 and has been a leader in the
Detroit Cass Corridor Art Movement. He has exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum
of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Cranbrook Museum of Art, and Marianne Boesky Gallery (New
York City), and many others. Sestok’s work is held in numerous collections, including the
Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Museum of Art, Wayne State University, and in northern
Michigan at Michigan Legacy Art Park.

In 2015, Sestok opened City Sculpture Park, a public art space in Detroit exhibiting three
decades of work with rotating exhibitions and a visiting artist program. The park is dedicated to
exposing the public to experimental sculpture work in Detroit.

Sestok works with different mediums such as painting and sculpture. The “influence of our
surroundings on our daily lives” is where he draws inspiration. “For sculptures, I use positive
cuts for the figure (a silhouette representing Man) and negative cuts to express architecture
(environmental space and its baggage). Welded metal works for this, takes me physically and
spatially into the metaphor … making different objects connect … that’s why I like welding.
There’s also a specific kind of permanency that comes with the way welded steel withstands
the elements, giving extended life to the work,” says Sestok.

For more information on Robert Sestok visit robertsestok.com or citysculpture.org