Martin Puryear, a distinctly iconoclastic sculptor whose immersion in the craft ethic is entwined in his work, has brought a major work to Madison Square Park and the neighborhood. With Big Bling, a wood and chain link fencing piece that towers 40 feet over the green space, the artist offers a gift of zen-like precision combined with wit and whimsy.

The tall, slender piece, vaguely reminiscent of the form of an elephant, is topped by a gleaming gold-leafed shackle that, when viewed from the south, is echoed by New York Life’s gold-topped tower. At different times of day the protean sculpture is nearly transparent, or completely opaque. It’s worth return visits to experience the forces this sculpture exerts on its surroundings. Big Bling remains at Madison Square Park through January 8, 2017, and will then travel to Philadelphia where it will remain for six months, beginning in May, 2017. Info

A few blocks away, at Broadway and 26^th Street, Rizzoli Bookstore has created a Puryear musées-valise in the window. Amid the various publications on the artist’s work is the 2014 iron sculpture, Shackled, on which Big Bling is modeled and which was seen last year at Matthew Marks Gallery. Behind-the-scenes photographs of Puryear’s studio, along with the template layout for the installation of Big Bling, combine to offer a taste of the process behind this towering colossus. Info

On Tuesday, May 24^th, Mad.Square.Arts, in collaboration with the School of Visual Arts, presents Dreaming Public Art, 7:30 pm. SVA Theater, 333 West 23^rd Street, NY, NY. RSVP required

Martin Puryear (American, b. 1941) earned his B.A. from Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. (1963) and his M.F.A. from Yale University (1971). He served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone (1964-66) and attended the Swedish Royal Academy of Art (1966-68). Puryear’s 2007 retrospective was organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York and traveled to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. An exhibition of his drawings, Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions, will be on view at New York’s Morgan Library & Museum from October 9, 2015 through January 10, 2016. He has received many distinguished awards, including the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (1980), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant (1982), and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1989). He was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1992) and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Yale University (1994). Puryear lives and works in the Hudson Valley region of New York. PRreview