New perspectives: an exhibition in a Greenwich Village lobby offers a new view of the city's skyline
With its crowded avenues and towering architecture, moments of calm and reflection are not easy to come by in New York City; a fact that has not been lost on artists Kevin Cooley and Phillip Andrew Lewis, whose new installation in the lobby of 55 5th Avenue in New York's Greenwich Village neighbourhood provides a little perspective on the city that never sleeps.
Using eight CCTV cameras installed on top of the building that frames views of the line between the Freedom Tower and the Empire State Building, the duo have concurrently set up eight monitors in the lobby that stream the captured footage live from the roof. Simultaneously looking north and south, the installation provides the building's residents and visitors with a new, yet impossible, view of this well-known skyline.
'I would say that the intention of the work is to create something thought-provoking, and that this intention is a thread that connects all AIB [Art-in-Buildings] projects,' says the installation's curator Jennie Lamensdorf. 'I like that this work has the potential to alter the way someone thinks of their geographical position within the city. If that makes someone feel restful or disorientated that's interesting to me, but neither of those feelings is the goal of the project.'
Sponsored by the Time Equities Inc. (TEI) Art-in-Buildings – a program that brings contemporary art to non-traditional exhibition spaces – the installation is the artists' sixth solo exhibition and first in Manhattan. Its title, The Long Division, references the north-south and east-west divisions of New York and explores recurring themes in the duo's oeuvre; in particular, a 2014 exhibition called In the Valley of the Sun, where the artists installed CCTV cameras and flat screen TVs in the shape of an arch at Sonoma State University in California. The result was a simulation of daylight created by tracing a 180° live view of the sky from sunrise to sunset.
ADDRESS
55 5th Avenue,
NY 10003, New York
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ali Morris is a UK-based editor, writer and creative consultant specialising in design, interiors and architecture. In her 16 years as a design writer, Ali has travelled the world, crafting articles about creative projects, products, places and people for titles such as Dezeen, Wallpaper* and Kinfolk.
-
Don't miss Luxembourg's retro-futuristic lab pavilion in Venice
As the Venice Biennale enters its last few weeks, catch 'A Comparative Dialogue Act' at the Luxembourg Pavilion
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
A Berlin park atop an office building offers a new model of urban landscaping
A Berlin park and office space by Grüntuch Ernst Architeken offer a symbiotic relationship between urban design and green living materials
By Michael Webb Published
-
Chaumet’s new book celebrates its most memorable collaborations with photographers
'Chaumet: Photographers’ Gaze' unites jewellery editorials and campaigns captured by major photographers. Co-author Carol Woolton tells us of the ‘addictive' Chaumet archive
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next Door
The Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
By Anne Soward Published
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New York
Violet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American West
The artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990s
New York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black men
The late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in Philadelphia
Artist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
By Hannah Silver Published
-
First look: Sphere’s new exterior artwork draws on a need for human connection
Wallpaper* talks to Tom Hingston about his latest large-scale project – designing for the Exosphere
By Charlotte Gunn Published