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The exhibition of my public sculpture "Well" , which got a Critic's Pick in Time Out New York among other press, has been extended through August 2012. It's in the north-eastern corner of Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn (near the steps to the Brooklyn Bridge).

The exhibition "Leonard Ursachi Bunkers: Drawings and Sculptures" has been extended to February 26, 2012 at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale. On Thursday, February 9th at 2:30 pm, I will talk about my bunkers and show the video "Hiding Place" at the Hebrew Home. "Hiding Place" was screened at the Brooklyn Art Council's 42nd Annual Film Festival in 2008, and at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, Romania, that same year.

Ian Frazier wrote about my bunkers for The Talk of the Town in the January 9 issue of The New Yorker.

My public sculpture "Well" , which got a Critic's Pick in Time Out New York, is on view in Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn, through April 2012.

Ian Frazier wrote about my bunkers in The Talk of the Town in this week's The New Yorker.

My "Well" is on view in the northern-most tip of Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn (near the steps to the Brooklyn Bridge) through April 2012.

"Well," which opened on October 29, has been getting press. New York Magazine's Jillian Goodman wrote about it, and Time Out New York gave it a critic's pick. It's also been mentioned on blogs, including mcbrooklyn. "Well" will be in Cadman Plaza Park (the north end, near the Red Cross Building and the pedestrian entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge) through April 2012.

Ian Frazier, in his The Talk of the Town article in the January 9 edition of The New Yorker, writes,

"Leonard Ursachi is an artist and a sculptor who makes bunkers. He grew up in Romania, where there were a lot of bunkers, and they fascinated him with their aspects of shelter, danger, safety, and fear. Now he has a studio in Brooklyn where he draws bunkers, constructs maquettes of bunkers, and builds life-size bunkers."

Jillian Goodman writes about "Well" in her "Roundup of New York Design" in New York Magazine.

Time Out New York gives "Well" a Critic's Pick.

“At the entrance of Prospect Park in Brooklyn stands sculptor Leonard Ursachi’s “Hiding Place,” a cylindrical military-style bunker which, thanks to its willow branch construction, could barely withstand a well thrown stone, let alone the onslaught of heavy artillery. It has no entrance or exit, and is adorned with three reflective plates in place of windows

“The shape of the structure is modeled after a war bunker, but the fact that it’s made out of willow branches, an ancient material in terms of building shelters, is meant to show frailty,” says the Romanian-born Ursachi.

Inspired by his nation’s history of violent conflict, he developed the idea for the sculpture in 2003. “War is really a universal subject, and I think that this piece invites anyone passing by to re-examine the meaning of home, how that meaning changes, and how individual personalities change, especially in times of war.”

New York Post, “Hotcetera – Society Sculpture” by Christofer Cassuto, Sunday,

August 5, 2007

“Leonard Ursachi’s willow-branch bunker would offer little protection in a military attack (especially with no visible entrance) but the deft combination of natural materials and human ingenuity make the 8’ x 8’ installation an interesting addition to Prospect Park’s august threshold.”

Time Out New York, Issue 611, June 14-20, 2007

“How do you see inside something that has mirrored windows and no door? Simple: Create your own mental picture of the interior. That’s what artist Leonard Ursachi is hoping you’ll do when encountering Hiding Place, his circular willow branch bunker in Prospect Park near the Grand Army Plaza entrance . . . ”

Time Out New York, “Out There – a street-smart guide to New York news and newsmakers” by Daniel Derouchie, Issue 610, June 7-13, 2007

“The seven-foot cylindrical structure covered with white feathers on Duarte Square, a triangular patch at the intersection of Canal Street and the Avenue of the Americas, may seem a bit odd. But the Romanian-born artist who created it can explain.

“I’m trying to debate the issue of safety, displacement and identity, all issues that go hand-in-hand,” the artist, Leonard Ursachi, said of “Refuge,” which was installed last weekend and will be on view through Dec. 17. The work is one of four bunker-like structures that Mr. Ursachi has made over the years. Three are in the United States, and one in Romania.

“My bunker projects, with their twin references to war and home, address the complexities inherent in the creation and maintenance of identity,” Mr. Ursachi said.”

The New York Times, “Inside Art” by Carol Vogel, September 24, 2004

“Boundaries and borders are a consistent theme for Ursachi. From tightly contained bunkers to reflecting wells, he often creates art that is, as Matilda McQuaid of the Museum of Modern Art once wrote, “seemingly benign and yet cause us to reexamine our own solitary experience.””

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “Brooklyn People” by Beth Aplin, December 14, 2007

“Installation artist Leonard Ursachi was a teenager in Rumania when the government bulldozed the house where his family had lived for three generations to make way for a housing project. “They really ripped my father’s heart out,” recalls the artist, who emigrated to America in 1988 after studying archeology at the Sorbonne in Paris. “He died in a miserable environment created by the state.”

. . . beginning in May, Ursachi will bring an environment of his own to Tribeca Park, at Beach Street and West Broadway. Called Open House, the 96-square-foot, 14-foot-high structure will invite visitors to venture within “walls” that blur boundaries between the self and the world outside.

. . . The project is co-sponsored by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, whose public arts coordinator, Adrian Sas, told the board that there were Sept. 11 overtones to the siting of the piece. “I think right now Lower Manhattan can use a little bit of vibrancy,” she said.”

Tribeca Trib, “For Leonard Ursachi, Home Where His Art Is,” April 2002

“Ursachi’s work has a solid, visceral presence, saturated with his trenchant humor and lively sense of the absurd.”

Courier Lifestyles, “Find Intriguing Art in ‘The Bunker’”, December 2000

“Most mysterious and threatening is Leonard Ursachi’s Bunker, a sculpture/video installation. Made of white ceramic tile in a style that cannot be connected to any cultural form, the bunker implies a people under siege. But who is attacking whom? It contains a small window for—what? Surveillance in, or out? Rifles or video cameras? The stylized bunker’s monolithic shape could be a tomb, or a shelter or hiding place. Its projected images suggest the initial disassociation that occurs between enemies, in which one people distinguishes themselves from the “other.” In other words, those inside the bunker are “safe,” while the viewers outside are not, in this literal depiction of the hunkered-down “bunker mentality.”

Around the globe, hidden or in the presence of television cameras or U.N. peacekeepers, violators of human rights work day and night for ideology, for land, for supremacy or economic control, explicitly ignoring the document drawn up in the wake of the Nuremburg Trials. Perhaps even more than others, artists can summon up the voices that need to be heard. And repeated, again and again.”

Silenced Voices, “Giving Voice to the Voiceless,” Amy Bracken Sparks, June 1999