Shoddy craftsmanship left a Central Park aerial art exhibit spinning out of control, a new lawsuit claims.
The nonprofit Public Art Fund filed suit in Manhattan federal court on Monday claiming it reluctantly had to dismantle a popular, spinning-airplane exhibit a month early last summer because the company tapped to install it secretly pawned much of the work off on a subcontractor, which did shoddy welding work rendering the piece “structurally unsound and unsafe.”
The mesmerizing, “How I Roll” sculpture by artist Paola Pivi — an engine-less, six-seat-Piper Seneca airplane that slowly rotated 360 degrees — was supposed to do somersaults at the park’s Doris Freedman Plaza on Fifth Avenue from June 20 through August 26 of last year.
However, the breach-of-contract suit claims it was dismantled a month early because Titon Builders Inc. of Lake Park, Fla., broke the terms of its agreement to perform all the fabrication work and, instead, subcontracted the job to Tru-Steel Corp. of Fort Pierce, Fla.
“It was a wildly popular exhibit, so it’s sad that it had to be taken down because of shoddy workmanship” said Jeffrey Klein, a lawyer for the Public Art Fund.
“It’s also sad that here you have a nonprofit known for putting on free art exhibits and [Titon and Tru-Steel] don’t want to honor the defects.”
The sculpture was built to be held at its wingtips, so it could rotate nose over tail, but the suit alleges “weldments for the right wing” of the airplane “prematurely failed.
The suit — which seeks at least $377,000 in damages for an “emergency de-installation” PAF had to perform — alleges Titon owner Rocky Bowe sent an August 2012 email to PAF Director Nicholas Baume stating Titon “did not have a defense for the weld failure.”
Messages left with Titon and Tru-Steel for comment were not immediately returned.