Ode To Tatlin

"Mary Ann Unger's "Ode to Tatlin," at Queens College, adds to an otherwise drab and incoherent stretch of campus a monument at once airy and grand." – Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 1992

"Mary Ann Unger's "Ode to Tatlin" is a permanent addition to the courtyard in front of the Aaron Copland School of Music. The sculpture is like a gateway to the school in the shape of an ellipse sliced in two, with the entrance directly through the middle. The sculpture takes as its inspiration Tatlin's famous "Monument to the Third International," but its slatted sides also suggest staves of music and the supports of a roller coaster whose swooping path is described by the ellipse." –Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 1992

"Recalling the exhilarating geometries of Russian Constructivism, the work creats an elliptical atrium out of two soaring, semicircular walls. These walls, however, are open and ribbed with arching vertical struts painted pumpkin on one side and teal on the other. Set in an empty plaza at the entrance to the building, the work functions both as a waiting area and as a grand yet welcoming entrance way and seems almost an extension of the architecture. Such functionalism is as fulfilling to Unger as the formal design." George Melrod, Public Art Review, 1993