WHO? Leo Villareal Sporty Geometric Copulation & Cindy Sherman Play Dates

WHO? Artist Leo Villareal’s BUCKYBALL

If a soccer ball,a rhombus, and a Rubik’s copulated in electric orgasm; the result would be artist Leo Villareal’s Buckyball: now on view and the Sandra Gering Gallery on the Upper East Side.

The original larger than life LED light ball debuted two years ago at Madison Square Park. Three smaller versions — at $150,000 each– draw us in now, igniting childhood sci fi fantasies. Like Jeff Koons– whose trains and giant basketball art sculptures — were inspired by his son’s leftover toys, Villareal seems to engage us playfully. Cuatro Villareal — 11 years — told me at the post opening dinner last evening at Amaranth that his dad’s work “inspires” him, which surprised his father.

“Funny,” Leo said. “He never seems interested in going to art parties, with the exception of Cindy Sherman’s holiday party one year.” He chuckled. “She’s only the most famous female artist in the world!” Little Cuatro, then a toddler, had found drawers of costumes Sherman had used to dress up for her own photos and post party, kept begging his father for “a play date with Cindy.”

Villareal — who first sculpted the buckyballs and then painstakingly crafted each of the LED lights affixed to the lines over the course of a year–has really won the jackpot for composing life sized FUN.

Anyone driving across the Oakland Bridge in San Francisco will enter Villareal’s LED embellished masterpiece (25,0000 LED lights on each angle of architecture) as he or she travels from one end to the other.

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And for those of us here in NYC, check out the three light fused balls here: Sandra Gering Gallery, 14 East 63rd Street, NY NYC, through January 10, 2015.

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