January 20, 2007
SLEEPWALKERS
Weather can be a friend and a foe for an outdoor art installation and its visitors. Seasonable January temperatures and a spitting drizzle go a long way to deterring crowds from forming around a public exhibit. At the same time, it may necessitate some childish strongarming* to get a woman to agree to stand in an alley watching a silent movie with you on a weeknight.
This particular visitor was lucky enough to come prepared with a hat, scarf, and gloves while waiting for his friend--delayed momentarily by anti-foie gras protestors outside the museum's restaurant entrance. The view from 53rd St. is underwhelming. One is backed up against the museum store across the street, so the upward angle to watch the films is pretty acute. Also, I believe that particular screen is being projected on from the inside of the museum. How that will make a difference follows in the next paragraph.
Around the corner from 53rd St. is a rather odd-looking vacant lot. It's bigger than an alley, but smaller than a skyscraper footprint. Given the location, the museum could probably have shoehorned about $90 million worth of condos into the space. Nonetheless, viewers huddled under an awning to watch films of Tilda Swinton and Cat Power. Turning onto 54th St., one immediately is confronted across the street with the awning of the restaurant Il Gattopardo, which is strange because I just started reading that book. But I digress. 54th St. is where the whole Doug Aitken "Sleepwalkers" exhibition comes together. In the Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, multiple projectors throw Aitken's work onto three different walls simultaneously and the parallel action of the movies is synchronized with each other. The effect was more interesting in the alley view, when one could watch two projections simultaneously out of the corner of one's eyes, but the sculpture garden stole the show hands down. It could very well have been the result of the weather. With steam columns pouring out of open manhole covers and from the tops of buildings into a cold drizzly atmosphere, Manhattan looked like a movie set. Images spun by huge projectors and thrown from kilowatt bulbs materialized in the atmospheric ether inside the sculpture garden. The facade of MoMA wasn't the only canvas for Aitken's work. For an evening, the weather managed to co-opt the entire space with rays of flickering light. It was pretty goddamn cool.
Proceeding down 5th Ave. following our visit, it was remarked that NYC that evening--especially St. Patrick's Cathedral--was looking like Gotham City and ready for its closeup. A side trip into Brooks Bros. was necessary and I can advise that almost everything on the floor of that repository of "old school" is 50% off. So, if you want a $200 pair of gloves on the not-so-cheap, they'll only cost you a Franklin.
*"I know you said you didn't want to go if it's raining, but it is raining, but not really, so basically whether you come or not is based on how much of a baby you are when it comes to getting your hair wet."
[Actual voicemail left to instigate art participation]
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at January 20, 2007 12:26 AM
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