Rirkrit Tiravanija's "Bike Share," part of the "Civic Action" exhibition at the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park.
¨when all else fails, the visionary thinking of artists has become public policy. Ten years ago an artist turned mayor painted dilapidated buildings with bright primary colors in Tirana, Albania, performing a kind of art therapy on a depressed city. And in Bogotá, Colombia, traffic police were replaced with mimes in the hope of supplanting corruption and violence with playful street theater.
The situation in Long Island City isn’t as dire as in those localities. But that section of Queens has been threatened in recent decades by unchecked development, the loss of affordable housing and the chemical hangover of industrialization. And so the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park asked four artists to take a crack at city planning.
Long Island City has a history of artist involvement. In 1961 Isamu Noguchi, the celebrated Asian-American sculptor, moved there to be near stone suppliers and metal fabricators, into a building that would later became his museum. In the early ’80s Mark di Suvero, whose 11 behemoth sculptures occupied Governors Island this past summer — and who became obliquely affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, since his red steel sculpture looms over Zuccotti Park — turned a landfill across the street from Noguchi’s building into an outdoor studio, which eventually became Socrates Sculpture Park.
when all else fails, the visionary thinking of artists has become public policy. Ten years ago an artist turned mayor painted dilapidated buildings with bright primary colors in Tirana, Albania, performing a kind of art therapy on a depressed city. And in Bogotá, Colombia, traffic police were replaced with mimes in the hope of supplanting corruption and violence with playful street theater.
The future solutions in the exhibition “Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City” at the Noguchi Museum range from site specific to silly.¨
¨If only the city could speak¨ intallation by Mary Miss
“Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City” is on view through April 22 at the Noguchi Museum, 32-37 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens; (718) 204-7088, noguchi.org.
Read Martha Schwendener´s note in full:
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