Jorg Dubin’s “Mercury Falling” public sculpture spills from rooftop to ground
After five years in the making, Laguna Beach artist Jorg Dubin recently completed a dramatic, 60-foot public sculpture installed outside Irvine’s Skyloft apartments. Aptly named “Mercury Falling,” the project hopes to share an environmental message about climate change.
Fabricated from 316L mirror-polished stainless steel, “Mercury Falling” depicts pooling liquid mercury spilling from the roof of the building to the ground with a splash.
“As the building architecture is quite contemporary and hard-edged, the need for something more organic that would act as a foil against the angular building and bring some needed softness as it reflected nature and the surrounding sky,” said Dubin. “Mercury Falling was a result of many design iterations. It is also a metaphor for the hope that humans will act on climate change so that the ‘mercury’ will ‘fall’ as temperatures cool.”
In 2017, the owner of Skyloft, Sanderson J. Ray development, asked Dubin to visualize a concept for a large-scale sculpture for the new complex in the heart of Irvine. After five years in the making, the finished product was installed on Sept. 17.
Dubin has had an extensive career in painting, sculpture, ceramics, and design for more than forty years. He studied painting at the Art Institute of Southern California with Stephen Douglas, and sculpture and design with Kris Cox and Richard White. Dubin has also been the art director and production designer on seven films for O Entertainment. He currently maintains a painting and sculpture studio in Laguna Beach.
Dubin is also known for his politically and socially charged paintings that demonstrate his respect for formal portraiture while commenting on the times in which we live. He said he deploys references to our contemporary environment within his formally rendered portraits, allowing for a straightforward interpretation of his paintings.
“I like to create tension by juxtaposing expressive, lushly rendered figures while bringing awareness to social inequality, political unrest, and the climate crisis,” Dubin said.
The sculpture is located at 2700 Main Street, near Irvine’s Business Center. Skyloft Apartments is a five-story apartment community that opened in the fall of 2019 and features 388 studios and luxury apartments. Skyloft was built by Streetlights Residential, designed by Architects Orange, and managed by Legacy Partners. The community’s design is by Thomas Schoos, along with landscaping by Adam Schwerner.
“Skyloft makes a bold statement for its design, both inside and out, and Dubin’s masterpiece is both striking and thought-provoking,” Legacy’s Regional Manager Dawn Mills said. “Skyloft offers the ultimate contemporary coastal living experience in Orange County and is now adorned with contemporary environmental commentary relevant to life in southern California.”
To find out more information on the artist, visit www.jorgdubin.com.
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Well, NOW it’s pretty obvious why Dubin has been writing letters and making comments that have staunchly followed the party line propaganda for Michael Ray’s cabal: Sanderson J. Ray IS MR.
Oh, I forgot, coincidences happen, right?
He told me at his digs in the Canyon about 15 years ago that being known as a “Laguna artist, or being from Laguna” was the kiss of death, a career-ending connection.
He’d never get famous or sell his art with that albatross. Only the fold school plain art had, and they were all dead.
Looks like it’s the beginning of the Dubin Ka-Ching Parade.
He won’t understand me, but actually I think this is a sweet form of revenge…..he’s gonna pull in the big $$$ while still alive!
This artist being successful is the antipathy of the scathing-jealous Laguna amateur artists who don’t sell because they’re not good enough, but moan about everything that passes them by. They’d rather hang out a craft shows! If not for their subsidies, we could professional artists from around the world in a real community instead of the ex-hippies who are only pros here because they can live cheap on their laurels.
Old school “En plein air,” my bad!
I think it’s great, that fame AND fortune arrived, considering his earlier frustration. He like many artists, musicians, writers, other creators and purveyors of culture, seldom achieve such success.
I once read that only about 1% reach this type of rarified air—-the other 99% barely feed themselves, scratch to get by through life. And they usually need a second/supplementary income source, either via their SO, or by working a second job themselves.
He’s earned it, has worked hard and diligently.
Who knows, maybe someday soon they’ll just call him “Dubin,” like Picasso, Dali, Miro, Gaugin? He has done a good PR job without an agent or manager, correct?
And unlike Wyland, I don’t think that he’ll mind people using his first name. Dubin & I both know Wyland, from his early days, when he was suspended from the Sawdust because he couldn’t prove he was personally making the jewelry he sold in his booth.
I always call him “Bob” when I see him, he snobbishly cringes and has given up telling me not to use his first name.
It’s sad that so many others remain in the shadows un-noticed, un-appreciated, unheralded and obviously under-funded.
Gazillion billionaire Bill Gates reportedly said “Life is not fair. Get used to it.” Easy for him to say it now, wonder if that occurred to him 40 years ago?
An artist known for stepping out of the box, it did seem odd that in the past year Dubin has ramped up his pro-development rhetoric this year.
Anyone know when he got the commission to create this installation, an advance, a retainer? Whether it’s art or not, whether it’s just meant to be controversial for the media/PR buzz industry, I’ll leave up to that community.
I’m an aficionado, but certainly not a credentialed critic. I can’t draw beyond paleolithic, stick figure cave stuff. First grade garage sale art.
It looks like a silver version of that creature The Blob, like it’s feasting on the premises……..but once again if one reads the explanation by Dubin, it has some kind of intrinsic meaning. Well, to him anyway.
Comedians say that “If you have to explain a joke, you’ve failed.” And then there’s the cliché, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I guess it means whatever you think it means?
Hopefully the installation will have the artist’s explanation on a prominently placed plaque?
Speaking of commissions, isn’t it also odd that to the best of my knowledge and recollection, no seated LB Planning Commissioner has ever waged such a media blitzkrieg, posting guest columns, LTE, making comments at the postings online themselves?
Sure, you get the predictable Mayor’s reports, I guess that makes sense to publish their thoughts once every month or so.
Dubin is in a dispositive (decision making flow chart), and by what he writes, could be challenged for being pre-disposed, biased towards rubber stamping new or re-development. Has he ever recused himself because of that?
Don’t get me wrong, compared to the meandering, pseudo-intellectual Baltimore Billy, Dubin clearly states his case. And at a true, not faux finish veneer, intellectually elevated style. So he’s a cerebral, master word-smith as well. Kudos.
Maybe for optics, they shouldn’t have promoted this installation right now. Waited until after the November election and initiatives were decided. Timing can be critical in life’s journey.
Speaking of which, it’s looking buck’s up for Dubin—maybe he can keep his present studio and still afford $4,000/month out at the folly that is the Artist’s Live/Work near the animal hospital?
Full disclosure, his unmitigated, categorical support of it?
That was our parting of the ways, what ended our friendship some 10 years ago.
He is BFF’s of whiner Longi.
I worked as the consultant to the grass roots resident folks, opposing this monolithic monstrosity. For those like Dubin who allege that people like me and the Canyon HOAs drove the eventual rent prices up from affordable to unaffordable by delaying it for about 8 years before breaking ground?
Let’s debunk and dispel a myth, a lie that’s patently false?
We had minuscule support from VL or the so-called historical Canyon protectionist NGOs. The historical record sustains that.
Like myself, in my submissions to the LBPC, LBCC and Coastal Commission, several of us predicted that it would be unaffordable, not low-income housing, but by opening, a middle class income tenants, back in 2012. While still in the decision tree food chain.
We had no idea how long it would take to completion, although as a long time contractor I knew that it was a complicated commercial endeavor. Blaming watchdogs is ridiculous.
A subterranean parking fixture, some 6 feet below the surrounding grade level in a known flood zone that has experienced hip deep torrential, fast flow conditions across the Canyon Road, I’m betting the underground portion will end up a swimming pool but instead of rubber duckies, cars and trash bins.
Google “Laguna Canyon Flooding,” there’s several videos, but the most startling one taken by the OC branch of ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) was shot at the future building site.
Browsers will be shocked by not just the 3-4 foot depth of the raging water but the sheer speed, the force, the destructive power.
Maybe Longi will weld the detritus together, put it out the Canyon Road and call the pile of rubble “Parking Structure Failing?”
Art in public places credit for another developer like Mo Mo Money, and grant funding?
“Semper Momento Coetus Fiasco?” (Coetus is assemblage in Latin).
Canyon critter and savvy local residents (“We told you so”) won’t need that explanation plaque.
What a caustic response to a beautiful piece of work. Jorg Dubin created a great piece of art for a local building in Irvine. What are you doing? Sitting on your sofa ripping pieces of art to bits from your armchair, through your computer?
Wow Roger, you have now re-enforced my belief that you know very little about myself let alone what constitutes good public art. Your vitriol and conspiracy diatribe is laughable. You clearly have too much time on your hands based on your lengthy missives. You are a clueless brute that brings less then nothing to the table. BTW, the last time you and I spoke was more then three decades ago! But I know facts mean nothing to a conspiracy monger like yourself. Now I am off to spend all that money you claim I derived from five years of hard work.
Hey Ramblin’ Roger, what on gods green earth are you trying to say? “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.” Abraham Lincoln.
Even though you weren’t born in Laguna (but nearby), take a breath and remember, you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it people like you!
Baltimore Billy
Roger, Jorg Dubin is perhaps Laguna’s best living artist and the decision to commission him to create a signature piece for Skyloft was made almost eight years ago (the project took 12 years to finish). Before you condemn him or great art more, or attempt to attach it to whatever agenda you are pushing, please go see the installation….and enjoy his art…as well, something really special.
When you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s hard to know when you’re finished.
Tom Smothers
Note to “grassroots resident folks opposing monolithic monstrosities:” Hire Ramblin’ Roger if you want to lose.
Last time we spoke wasn’t 30 years ago, George.
I drove out to your studio in the early 2000s with our former guitar player & band leader, George McGuire.
He was on a slow path to death, in bad health, did die a few years later……..I had flown him down from Montana and he wanted to look you and Al Oakley up.
We 3 sat in that snazzy upholstered booth you have after you showed us around your studio.
We reminisced about the old days in the Newport area, how you were much younger and couldn’t play night clubs with a band being underage though a wunderkind at drums.
So add brain fog to your résumé.
Clueless brute? Wasn’t that you imitating Charley Brown out at 2nd base on the softball field?
Funny, you can be a controversial and edgy multi-media artist but when that edgy is pointed your way, you dish it out but can’t take it. Just like Baltimore Billy.
The last time we spoke was about 9 years ago, in the Aliso Creek Shopping Center.
You were on your way to the yoga place, I was walking past.
You tried to strike up a chat but I told you that since you’d gone to the dark side by supporting Louis Longi, I really didn’t think we had anything to discuss.
You made some expletive deleted comments in a heated way, and I warned you not to write checks with your mouth, etc.
THAT was the last time we spoke, if you can call 2 adult males shouting past each other that……
So if these online sections ARE the public marketplace of ideas, why are you or your ilk more important?
You and your sycophants champion free expression and 1st amendment rights, unorthodox behavior, but only for yourselves?
And from what Michael Ray has written, you were already immersed in the big $$$ developer cartel around the time I wrote you off as someone I HAD respected at one time.
OTOH, you guys are actually pretty boring conversation-wise, so I’m outta here.
Hey, whatever happened to that Louis Longi project that Ramblin Roger (not born here, but near here) duped some unsuspecting rubes into paying him to stop? Oh yeah, it’s almost done.
Baltimore, what the heck is going on here.
Are umlauted and umlautless Roger the same Roger? How about Jorg and George?
Yours truly,
HG Wells
Jorg,
Congratulations on getting your sculpture installed. It looks stunning. I look forward the piece in person.
Oh, and Mr. Butow: nonsense that goes on too long is still nonsense, and vitriol that goes interminably is just pathetic.
Iconic.