The Best of NYC ART
BEST ILLEGAL PUBLIC ARTWORK: Williamsburg Prayer Wheel
BEST (OR AT LEAST BEST IRONIC) BROOKLYN TAG: Buy Krasdale
BEST CHALLENGING PUBLIC ARTWORK IN TIMES SQUARE: At 44
BEST TACKY PUBLIC ARTWORK IN TIMES SQUARE: Valentine to Times Square
BEST NEW GALLERY IN AN OLD LES STOREFRONT: Invisible-Exports
BEST NEW GALLERY IN AN OLD BROOKLYN WAREHOUSE: The Boiler
BEST DEARLY DEPARTED GALLERY: Guild & Greyshkul
BEST ART FAIR: No Soul for Sale
BEST NEW BUILDING: Bank of America Tower
BEST BUILDING RENOVATION: Lincoln Center
BEST INSTALLATION THAT FILLED THE SECOND FLOOR ATRIUM AT MOMA: Pipilotti Rist
FIVE BEST/WORST UNINTENDED ART WORKS
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BEST LEGAL PUBLIC ARTWORK: David Byrne’s Bike Racks
Even though the city picked a pretty boring new bike rack design from the entries in a competition last year — which still haven’t hit the sidewalks — they installed David Byrne’s bike racks at nine locations throughout the city. Designed as comments on their respective ‘hoods (a nude silhouette in Times Square, a dollar sign in the Financial District, an electric guitar in Williamsburg), they’re a fun change from the dreary, black, U-shaped racks. Encore!
BEST ILLEGAL PUBLIC ARTWORK: Williamsburg Prayer Wheel
The fact that FAILE’s prayer wheel disappeared from its location on North 6th Street in Williamsburg within a week of being bolted to the sidewalk by members of the artists collective somehow gives their project even more cred. Last we checked, the sculpture’s second iteration on Bedford Avenue was doing a little better (it got tagged, but then cleaned, sort of), and given the general socio-economic zeitgeist, maybe more public praying wheels are in order.
BEST (OR AT LEAST BEST IRONIC) BROOKLYN TAG: Buy Krasdale
Yup, the humble C-Town house brand of everyday foods has been elevated to underground graf status. It’s a simple, legible tag, and if this turns out to be some genius guerrilla marketing campaign, we swear we’ll buy Krasdale “cheese” for the rest of our days.
BEST CHALLENGING PUBLIC ARTWORK IN TIMES SQUARE: At 44
We’re having to unlearn our habit of tuning out the brain-liquefying streams of crass consumerism that run in vicious loops on Times Square’s giant screens, because this year’s slate of artists featured in Creative Time’s At 44 1/2 video art series on the MTV screen has been phenomenal. In April it was Patty Chang, Kate Gilmore and Marilyn Minter, and July featured a 1997 piece by Steve McQueen broadcasting to unsuspecting tourists lounging in their lawn chairs.
BEST TACKY PUBLIC ARTWORK IN TIMES SQUARE: Valentine to Times Square
For about nine days in February, Times Square was a little extra lit up when Gage/Clemenceau Architects’ Valentine to Times Square occupied the pointy corner of Father Duffy Square at 46th and Broadway. The heart-shaped statue of laser-cut steal, glowing LED lighting and expensive new materials we can’t name for fear of copyright infringement, was exactly as embarrassingly corny as you’d expect a ten foot-tall, two-ton pink heart to be.,p.
BEST NEW GALLERY IN AN OLD LES STOREFRONT: Invisible-Exports
The narrow little hallway of a space occupied by Invisible-Exports (14A Orchard St) is charmingly cramped, and still directors Risa Needleman and Benjamin Tischer manage to make the most of it. The space became a real estate showroom and time-share office for Lisa Kirk’s House of Cards; the back room was turned into a nautical-themed screening room during Miami Noir; and visiting their recent Summer Reading video series felt like stepping into a friend’s living room.
BEST NEW GALLERY IN AN OLD BROOKLYN WAREHOUSE: The Boiler
Just the right balance of post-industrial chic and unpolished grit, Pierogi’s new North Williamsburg space The Boiler (191 N. 14th St) practically demands flashy and spectacular installations, since artists have to compete with the hulking, two-story boiler that still dominates the space.
BEST OF NYC HOME
BEST DEARLY DEPARTED GALLERY: Guild & Greyshkul
We’re still coming to terms with the closure of Soho institution Guild & Greyshkul in February, which marked another important step toward the art evacuation of that once bustling gallery district. At least they went out with the spectacular bang that was their attic-clearing closing exhibition, On From Here.
BEST OF NYC HOME
BEST ART FAIR: No Soul for Sale
Well, technically it was more of a massive group exhibition for non-profits and artist collectives, but X-Initiative’s (548 W 22nd St) weekend-long event No Soul For Sale in late June had the kind of energetic buzz and optimism that we wish Armory week fairs provoked. The rooftop screening space made of swimming pool noodles was also really, really cool.
BEST NEW BUILDING: Bank of America Tower
Sure, it’s another glassy monument to late capitalism, but the Bank of America Tower (42nd Street at Sixth Ave) is also the city’s greenest skyscraper to date, with water conservation and a greywater system, in-the-floor air circulation that eliminates the need for air conditioning and more environmentally friendly construction materials. Plus, the building looks really cool from across the river, and as part of the project BofA renovated the neighboring Henry Miller Theater.
BEST BUILDING RENOVATION: Lincoln Center
We still can’t afford most events that are held at Lincoln Center, but at least now we can look in on the high culture fortress’s glamorous ticket-holding crowds through the spectacular new glass facades of Diller + Scofidio, FX Fowle and Cooper Robertson’s redesign. Better yet, the new outdoor stadium seating at 65th Street and Broadway actually makes us want to hang out on the Upper West Side.
BEST INSTALLATION THAT FILLED THE SECOND FLOOR ATRIUM AT MOMA: Pipilotti Rist
Given the constraints of the high-traffic space and its intimidating grandeur, we were most impressed with Pipilotti Rist’s spectacular and hyper-kinetic multi-channel video projection Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), which turned the three story-tall white cube into a panoramic festival of color and light all winter long. (Sorry Martin Kippenberger and Song Dong.)
FIVE BEST/WORST UNINTENDED ART WORKS
Vitamin Water: SYNC
Has the influence of net artist Kevin Bewersdorf reached the good people at Vitamin Water? It sure looks like it. Known for producing such absurd objects as a towel printed with a low resolution image of a father carrying his son, and a compilation of free music titled BABES, Bewersdorf’s unique sensibility finds sympathetic response in Vitamin Water’s newest product SYNC. The berry-flavored drink offers a “download of vitamins and antioxidants,” as well as a mystery mpfree available on myspace with the purchase of the drink. Bit torrent sites beware — you’ve got vitamin water competition? The company’s actions speak to long artistic tradition of knowingly creating redundant or useless material as a means of subverting viewer expectations.
Help’s “I Can’t Sleep” Marketing Campaign at Ricky’s
Following the lineage of appropriation artist Sherri Levine, the hair salon and sex toy peddlers at Ricky’s remake Chu Yun’s This Is XX by paying a woman to sleep in their storefront. While Yun asked performers to do the same in the original work, most recently on view at the Younger Than Jesus show at the New Museum, today the window display is part of Help’s “I Can’t Sleep” marketing campaign. Notably, people seem to find the latter work much more successful, probably on account of the fact that it doesn’t have word “art” attached to it. Clearly cleverness has much lower standards in the world of marketing.
Motorbikes Wrapped in Canvas Tarps
Exchanging the bureaucratic aspect of Christo and Jean-Claude’s public wrapping projects for a repair bill, motorbike shops all over the city similarly cover their vehicles with object-specific canvas bags. This year, we mourn the loss of Williamsburg’s greatest bike installation service S&B, which regularly thwarted convention and left its motorcycles uncovered.
Greg Wyatt’s Peace Fountain at St. John the Divine
Greg Wyatt’s 1985 Peace Fountain at St. John the Divine (1047 Amsterdam Ave) was originally conceived as art, but makes our list regardless because it succeeds on terms the artist surely hadn’t intended: awfulness. After all, this is a work that brings together crab claws, a kissy moon face, a double-jointed giraffe, a centaur and various human limbs. It’s so Postmodern.
Liberty Tax Service
Who wants to see a little freedom in their tax forms? We know we do. Every April, Liberty Tax Service executes a city-wide performance in which sad-sack Statue of Liberties stand on street corners soliciting business. This work attempts to underscore the human tendency to forget a gift’s history. The French gave us the Statue of Liberty in 1886 as a symbol of friendship and a celebration of independence, but today, accountants remind us that it is a symbol of our freedom to pay taxes.
Homeless People Installation in Front of the New Museum
This isn’t unintended art — it’s just fucked up. For all the talk about museums as a positive economic force, this so-called “bridge” between the poor and the rich still leaves the homeless, well, homeless. The only real change the museum has brought to the poor is that their street corner is now a little better lit. We can thank the New Museum’s front foyer for that.
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