Art in the City: Mini-Escapes for the City-Bound
Kim Holleman, Trailer Park; Nancy Rubins, Big Pleasure Point
by Kate LowensteinArticle Tools
- Courtesy Storefront for Art and Architecture
Kim Holleman
Trailer Park
Petrosino Square, at Lafayette and Kenmare Sts
Manhattanites — who are all too familiar with cramped living quarters — might take a little pleasure in finding a trailer in the middle of an East Village sidewalk. On the outside, the silver vehicle appears to be an inventive solution to ever-soaring rent costs, but a peek through one of its windows reveals not beds, but rather a tiny oasis of green and calm. Kim Holleman’s Trailer Park is a miniature garden, complete with two benches, a sundial and a trickling fountain, installed in what once was a functional trailer. A paved path winds between two small mounds of soil sprouting leafy plants that are watered through a hidden irrigation system. This portable patch of nature — part of the current Storefront for Art and Architecture show around the corner — is the perfect invention for an ever-moving city. The stationary sculpture would be far more exciting, however, if it made use of its wheels and roved the urban landscape rescuing those seeking momentary refuge from the concrete jungle.
Nancy Rubins
Big Pleasure Point
Josie Robertson Plaza, Lincoln Center
Rubins has added a splash of maritime color to Lincoln Center’s gray plaza. Big Pleasure Point is a collection of over 60 boats fastened together high above the ground with a complex system of wires. The salvaged kayaks, canoes and rowboats burst outward in a giant, many-pointed star above the swarming crowds of tourists and theater-goers. The piece, created between midnight and 7am every day for over a week, is a happy reminder that we’re on an island, albeit one that usually lacks the beachy feeling that this gravity-defying construction invokes. The hovering vessels loom like a hazy memory of a seaside vacation — or, for the rubberneckers among us, like a 60-boat pileup from the East River.
Trailer Park
Petrosino Square, at Lafayette and Kenmare Sts
Manhattanites — who are all too familiar with cramped living quarters — might take a little pleasure in finding a trailer in the middle of an East Village sidewalk. On the outside, the silver vehicle appears to be an inventive solution to ever-soaring rent costs, but a peek through one of its windows reveals not beds, but rather a tiny oasis of green and calm. Kim Holleman’s Trailer Park is a miniature garden, complete with two benches, a sundial and a trickling fountain, installed in what once was a functional trailer. A paved path winds between two small mounds of soil sprouting leafy plants that are watered through a hidden irrigation system. This portable patch of nature — part of the current Storefront for Art and Architecture show around the corner — is the perfect invention for an ever-moving city. The stationary sculpture would be far more exciting, however, if it made use of its wheels and roved the urban landscape rescuing those seeking momentary refuge from the concrete jungle.
Nancy Rubins
Big Pleasure Point
Josie Robertson Plaza, Lincoln Center
Rubins has added a splash of maritime color to Lincoln Center’s gray plaza. Big Pleasure Point is a collection of over 60 boats fastened together high above the ground with a complex system of wires. The salvaged kayaks, canoes and rowboats burst outward in a giant, many-pointed star above the swarming crowds of tourists and theater-goers. The piece, created between midnight and 7am every day for over a week, is a happy reminder that we’re on an island, albeit one that usually lacks the beachy feeling that this gravity-defying construction invokes. The hovering vessels loom like a hazy memory of a seaside vacation — or, for the rubberneckers among us, like a 60-boat pileup from the East River.
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