Alice Aycock

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Aycock earned a B.A. in Art in 1968 from Douglass College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and, three years later, an M.A. in Fine Art from Hunter College in New York. As a graduate student and advisee of sculptor Robert Morris, she served as the Art History department’s slide librarian, an experience that fueled a deep interest in history. Concurrently she began creating large-scale, Minimalist-inspired sculptures that invited viewers to navigate mazes, climb ladders, or crawl through cramped enclosures. These works, described by Aycock as “non-functional architecture,” were made by digging and reshaping the earth. By the late 1970s, Aycock’s work referenced industrial and amusement park architecture, as well as historic and contemporary technology.

Beginning in the 1990s, Aycock collaborated with landscape architects and architects on several permanent public commissions, including East River Roundabout (1995) in New York City and Spiral Stair Encircling a Cone and Suspended Cyclone Fragment (1996), located at the San Francisco Main Public Library. The former, reminiscent of a roller coaster, spirals through the roof of the East River 60th Street Pavilion, designed by landscape architect Nicholas Quennell. Additional site-specific public works include Swing Over (2004) in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ghost Ballet for the East Bank Machineworks (2008) in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2014 Aycock temporarily installed a seven-piece work, Park Avenue Paper Chase, on the median on New York City’s Park Avenue from 52nd Street to 66th Street.

Temporarily installed in 1973 and 1975, respectively, two of Aycock’s early works—Low Building with Dirt Roof (for Mary) and A Simple Network of Underground Wells—have since found permanent homes in the Hudson Valley at Storm King Art Center (2010), and Art Omi (2011).

Aycock has lived and worked in New York City since 1968.