crane game
cul de sac, july 1 2018
Cul De Sac is a new venue, where Greenpoint Avenue dead ends at the newtown creek under the greenpoint avenue bridge. It serves as a hub for the DOT bridge inspection unit but it’s also a quiet spot for nomads to congregate and cops to get blowjobs. Dead ends create streets for people (rather than for cars) by disrupting the constant flow of traffic on roads. This one in particular is a place for reflection: stop, look around, see the buildings turned upside down on the surface of the water. Being there among the curved curbs viewable from all sides feels like being on a coliseum floor or in a circus ring - the perfect location for a summer situation.
For Crane Game I have invited a group of artists to show objects hanging from a Calder-esque mobile, which will be suspended from a crane during the show on July 1. Under the mobile, performers will use the unique character of the space and spectacle as a stage.
This project aims to participate in the “placeness” of this open space, to throw a hand into the phenomenology of this dead end as a secured site. It’s physical structure and natural ecology make it uniquely private, but it’s visibility from the thoroughfare on the bridge keeps it from being clandestine in any way that necessitates discovery; it is a site for inhabitation without the need for development. In this way, it functions both exclusively and publicly - like a storefront gallery, only seen by those in-the-know or those who walk by.
Every inch of this city is slowly being ripped apart and pieced together with construction equipment. To bring these same tools into a sliver of the city that is wholly undesirable warrants using those tools for unintended purposes. This display will simultaneously create a singular work and an archive of works specific to the site, thereby engendering connection to the space, and an ephemeral infrastructure to be taken away at the end of the day.
