For reasons that are a mystery to me, the southeast corner of First Avenue and 14th Street has become a dumping ground for assorted household garbage just recently. It’s beyond disgusting. Come on people; have a little pride in your city and refrain from dumping your garbage on the sidewalk. Every apartment building in the city has assigned bins for refuse disposal. You don’t need to strew your shit on the corner of a busy intersection. Losers.
As an example though of something that was probably abandoned on the spot, with little malice of forethought (though with a serious lack of personal responsibility), I recently noticed a discarded Play Stroller that was Pink enough to make make whip out my phone and document its sad demise. They could have at least tried to haul it to a trash bin.
Actually, I am only guessing that this oversized Pink Plush Toy seen here atop a rather large Heap of Assorted Garbage is a Monkey, because it really cannot be identified for certain one way or the other. It might be an Pink Elephant or a large, discarded Pink Panther. Who can say? I spotted him while walking uptown on Avenue C near the river. Thank goodness for smartphone cameras!
Pratt Manhattan Gallery presents 0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art, a multi-medium exhibition that explores time in its many iterations — real time, virtual time, historical time, recorded time, manipulated time and more. Named for the phenomenon in which the average museum visitor spends less than one minute looking at a work of art, the exhibition features artists who use nontraditional media (including robotics and computer software) to encourage viewers to think about time in new and varied ways. The artists hail from New York City (Alison Collins, Dan Estabrook and Jeff Liao) and across the country.
Felix Gonzales-Torres Untitled (Portrait of Dad)
0 to 60 includes well-known artists such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres, the late Pratt alumnus whose interactive installation Untitled (Portrait of Dad) consists of 175 pounds of individually wrapped candies, and rising artists like David Chatt, whose Bedside Table is adorned with thousands of tiny seed beads.
Background: Alison Collins’ Garden of Pleasure
Foreground: Bedside Table By David Chatt
The exhibition also includes two installations uniquely tailored to Pratt Manhattan Gallery — Lisa Hoke’s expansive wall mosaic and Alison Collins’Garden of Pleasure. Also of note is Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Last Breath, which uses a respirator, a digital counter and other items to capture and circulate a viewer’s breath, inflating and deflating a paper bag 10,000 times a day to mimic the respiratory cycle of a typical adult at rest.
Richard Hughes, Untitled (Triptick)
“Modern society is obsessed with time, and we’ve noticed the concept bubbling up in contemporary art,” said Linda Dougherty, who co-curated the exhibition with Jean McLaughlin. “These works reference a longstanding tradition in art—whether it be through historical paintings that tell an unfolding story or through still lifes that capture one fleeting moment,” she added, In addition to those mentioned above, other artists featured in the exhibition include Dan Bailey, Walead Beshty, Jana Brevick, Paul Chan, Sonya Clark, Caetano de Almeida, Tehching Hsieh, Richard Hughes, Peter Matthews and David Shapiro.
Afro Abe (Progression) By Sonya Clark
Detail from Afro Abe
0 to 60 will be on Exhibit Through January 25, 2014 at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, Located at 144 West 14th Street, Second Floor, New York, NY. Gallery Hours are Monday – Saturday, 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM; Thursdays 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM.
