Subway Art Gallery Opening

Via ImprovEverywhere

Unsere Freunde von Improv Everywhere beeindruckten letzte Woche mit einem neuen Streich, einer Gallerie Eröffnung im New Yorker Untergrund. Ein Streichensemble, Sekt, eine Garderobe, ein paar eingeweihte Partizipanten und schon ist der U-Bahnhof der 23. Straße in Manhattan Ziel intellektueller Kunstliebhaber. Die zu Kunstobjekte deklarierten Ausstellungsstücke waren ausschließlich bereits vorhandene Schilder, Gasleitungen, Werbeposter, Mülleimer oder verschlossene Stromkästen. Zur weiteren Verwirrung wurden zusätzliche Plaketten angebracht, die mit einer Beschreibung des ‘Kunstwerkes’ versehen wurden.

“This may seem like a silly exercise, but I think it can be pretty useful! It puts you in a position to re-examine the mundane, imagine others’ intentions, and create new contexts for the objects and ideas you encounter every day. Usually we would just call that “acting”, but in this case, so much of the pretending is internal that maybe it’s not exactly theater? I’m sure there’s an argument for both sides. Regardless, I found the gallery opening to be an exhilarating, tremendously creative experience, and the hundreds of people who passed through, even if they didn’t join, at least encountered a fun, unexpected, disorienting moment.”

Brick Window (2003)
Metropolitan Transit Authority in collaboration with Unknown Artists

Glass Bricks with Ink marker

This piece inverts the typical window by making it from opaque bricks, set within a larger opaque wall. This opens the dialogue between the lower spaces of the MTA subway and the upper world where sunlight would necessitate such windows. The null opacity of the glass is called to attention by the use of ink markers.

Telephone Line (2002)
Metropolitan Transit Authority in collaboration with Telecom

This homage to the urgency of communication is meant to highlight the recent necessity, from instant to instant, to maintain the potential for instantaneous, world-wide contact from any location, at any time. That a conversation from such a location would be abruptly interrupted by an arriving train suggests the artist’s intent to lampoon the perceived dependence on telecommunication.