PRESS
“Costa makes quiet poetry through a magical metaphor created with light and space. A moving experience so pertinent in times when many artists seem limited in nuance and complexity,”
— Curator Jorge Luis Gutierrez.
2003
2003
“The most compelling aspect of this installation is how each of the lights pulsed on and off. For instance, the ''God'' cylinder was like a quickened heartbeat. The ''I'' neon light was faster, a more anxious beat. ''Hers'' was rhythmic, steady, almost calming. ''His'' looked somewhat like a radar blip: 1-2-3, then a pause, then 1-2-3 again. All these effects add a certain personification to an otherwise lifeless combination of objects.”
— D. Dominick Lombardi (September. 7, 2003)
2002
“After the attack, I’d been having this recurring nightmare that the sky was raining paper. It haunted me and I couldn’t ignore it; I couldn’t keep making art without absorbing this experience,” said artist Pietro Costa. “A few days before the installation of the column of light which had been finished before September 11, 2001, I knew exactly what the answer to my nightmare was, I needed to physically introduce this occurrence into the sculpture in a way that would memorialize those who were gone including an interactive component, something that the viewer could pick up and take away,”
— Pietro Costa.
“All New Yorkers know about the “Tower of Light” at the site of the World Trade Center…But there’s another “tower of light,” although much smaller, that also memorializes the dead from both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Made of neon light rings with a wooden platform, it’s “grace” by Brooklyn’s Pietro Costa, on display now at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers.”
— Raanan Geberer (Mar. 21, 2002)
2002
2002
“Death is also oddly evoked by Pietro Costa’s “grace” (2002), an ethereal looking structure of concentric red and yellow neon hoops, which appear to float in air although strung from the ceiling. The work aims at a dialogue with the Flavin installation in the skylight above, but it also came to be a memorial for Sept. 11, its base strewn with tiny slips of paper printed with the names of the dead.”
— Grace Glueck (Mar. 1, 2002)
“Among the most outstanding [work] — indeed, you won’t be able to miss it — is Pietro Costa’s two-story “grace” (2002)… The pieces of paper recall the ancient Egyptian notion that a person lives on through his name — which is voiced, written and thus remembered… Costa’s original sculpture did not include the memorial wreath. But in light of Sept. 11, he reimagined his work. At such moments, “The Magic of Light” beams beyond the technological to touch the transcendent.”
— Georgette Gouveia (Feb.10, 2002)
2002
2002
“Mr. Costa’s history as an artist associated with the [aeshetics and sensibilities of the] Italian movement Arte Povera lends the sculpture genuine feeling for those artists’ deliberately incorporated humble materials, here the slips of paper, along with more sophisticated ones.”
— William Zimmer (Feb. 17, 2002)
1999
“Costa makes quiet poetry through a magical metaphor created with light and space. A moving experience so pertinent in times when many artists seem limited in nuance and complexity,”
— Curator Jorge Luis Gutierrez.
“After the attack, I’d been having this recurring nightmare that the sky was raining paper. It haunted me and I couldn’t ignore it; I couldn’t keep making art without absorbing this experience,” said artist Pietro Costa. “A few days before the installation of the column of light which had been finished before September 11, 2001, I knew exactly what the answer to my nightmare was, I needed to physically introduce this occurrence into the sculpture in a way that would memorialize those who were gone including an interactive component, something that the viewer could pick up and take away,”
— Pietro Costa.
“Death is also oddly evoked by Pietro Costa’s “grace” (2002), an ethereal looking structure of concentric red and yellow neon hoops, which appear to float in air although strung from the ceiling. The work aims at a dialogue with the Flavin installation in the skylight above, but it also came to be a memorial for Sept. 11, its base strewn with tiny slips of paper printed with the names of the dead.”
— Painting Exuberant Forms With a Palette of Light
by Grace Glueck (Mar. 1, 2002)
“All New Yorkers know about the “Tower of Light” at the site of the World Trade Center…But there’s another “tower of light,” although much smaller, that also memorializes the dead from both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Made of neon light rings with a wooden platform, it’s “grace” by Brooklyn’s Pietro Costa, on display now at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers.”
— Brooklyn Artist’s Neon Sculptures Memorializes WTC Victims
by Raanan Geberer (Mar. 21, 2002)
![“Among the most outstanding [work] — indeed, you won’t be able to miss it — is Pietro Costa’s two-story “grace” (2002)… The pieces of paper recall the ancient Egyptian notion that a person lives on through his name — which is voiced, written and thu…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/644c095c1d83f6405c5a663c/1682710025437-P31X019OOL6T174VUAO2/lohud+%281%29.png)
“Among the most outstanding [work] — indeed, you won’t be able to miss it — is Pietro Costa’s two-story “grace” (2002)… The pieces of paper recall the ancient Egyptian notion that a person lives on through his name — which is voiced, written and thus remembered… Costa’s original sculpture did not include the memorial wreath. But in light of Sept. 11, he reimagined his work. At such moments, “The Magic of Light” beams beyond the technological to touch the transcendent.”
— Artists Respond To Sept. 11
by Georgette Gouveia (Feb.10, 2002)
“The most compelling aspect of this installation is how each of the lights pulsed on and off. For instance, the ''God'' cylinder was like a quickened heartbeat. The ''I'' neon light was faster, a more anxious beat. ''Hers'' was rhythmic, steady, almost calming. ''His'' looked somewhat like a radar blip: 1-2-3, then a pause, then 1-2-3 again. All these effects add a certain personification to an otherwise lifeless combination of objects.”
By D. Dominick Lombardi (September. 7, 2003)
“Mr. Costa’s history as an artist associated with the [aeshetics and sensibilities of the] Italian movement Arte Povera lends the sculpture genuine feeling for those artists’ deliberately incorporated humble materials, here the slips of paper, along with more sophisticated ones.”
— Show Turns a Spotlight on Light Itself In All Forms
by William Zimmer (Feb. 17, 2002)
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Neighborhood Man Engineers a New Kind of Art
by Christy Goodman (Apr. 15, 2002)
From Sant’Arsenio, Salerno, Italy to Carroll Gardens, Pietro Costa works best in that small town atmosphere…”I was always attracted to tools and finagling with materials,” said Costa…”I was born into a farming family. I think farmers have a lot to do with making art,” he said. “In art you plant ideas and then you harvest your efforts — I have always seen things that way.”
