East 26th Street Art
Every day, I walk down East 26th street towards Brooklyn College and see sixteen various blue glass sculptures—from thin vases to a grasping hand—displayed in a window. This display has been in the window at least as long as I’ve been in Brooklyn, a few months now.
Since it is artwork in a home yet made visible to every passerby, this piece skates the lie between private and public art. However, it is in front of a white curtain so it is in fact more visible to us than someone in the same room, and so I consider it a public piece of art. I doubt that it was commissioned; rather it is a collection of sculptures which the resident collected and displayed in a certain way to be viewed by the public.
Our anonymous curator set up the sixteen pieces in two rows in the window. Despite differences in size and shape, the pieces have several commonalities. For one, they are all the same striking royal blue glass that draws attention to detailing on the house. Goblets, vases, a hand, a lamp all make up this collection. The artist, or curator, may be trying to point out that, in life, we can find similarities even among the most disparate things and that humans create order—as in a patterned array of objects—where there was none before.
To see this piece, one has simply to stop at the corner of E. 26th and Campus Road and look in the window of the house. Many people may not notice it as they go about their daily routine, but it is always there. Depending upon where the sun is in the sky, the glass figures catch the light in different ways, and different pieces become the focus.
I wanted to write about this display because it is not public or street art in the classic sense, yet someone chose to put their private collection out for public viewing and I often wonder why. I believe this piece will be around for a long time, if for no other reason than to highlight the distinctive blue beams of the home.
This was a great post! Very original and thoughtful.