I pass this installation everyday walking to Baruch, and the most powerful thought it brought up for me was just why on earth was there a random picture of this boy on a lamppost? So based on my own experience, I think this photograph works to engage the public mainly by making people wonder why it’s even there. Of course there are also the details to think about, like how it’s mesh, black and white, and visible from both sides. But it’s its existence in itself (paired with really small informative text) that I think engage people the most.
This is a different picture than the one above, but in the same banner-on-a-lamppost format. And like I said above, I think its impact lies more with the fact that this is a random picture in the street, than with the actual picture in itself. For both of these installments, they may achieve the goal of art in general in that they make you wonder, but they don’t necessarily make you think of the global migration crisis, which is what Weiwei intended them to reflect.
This is the other installment that I happened upon before this homework was assigned, and like the first one, I didn’t realize that it is part of a larger art initiative.This may speak more to my unfamiliarity with the city, but I thought this was a permanent structure in Washington Square park. Unlike the banners however, this piece invites interaction. The tunnel outlined by the shape of people draws you in, and makes you want to go through it. Therefore this piece is more of a physical engagement than the other two. Again, I don’t know that it would make someone thing about the global migration crisis, but it makes you think.
The theme I chose for the curatorial project was animal endangerment and extinction and its impact. Therefore, if I were to create some kind of public art to reflect this theme, I would probably have a bunch of life-size figures of extinct species, and concentrate a lot of them in a few locations.This way, if someone were to go by one of those areas, the presence of the animals would be a lot more obvious, and people would be more likely to think about them. For example, by Bethesda Fountain in central park I would have a life-size dodo bird statue, and saber tooth tiger statue, and maybe a small dinosaur statue, and I would have these all in that square together. Furthermore, I would have a bunch of these groups in all different busy areas throughout New York City in order so that as many people as possible come into contact with the art.
I think the impact a conglomeration of life like statues of extinct species in one spot would have, is to at least get people thinking about why they are there. Hopefully though, there thoughts would go more to thinking about the animals themselves. Maybe people would wonder about what it would have been like if the animals were here with us, or what it was like at the time that they did exist.
One idea that stuck out to me from the video in the Art in the Open exhibit was that with public art, as opposed to art in museums, people aren’t afraid to provide their initial, unbiased feedback. This feedback takes form through interaction with the art, either physically or verbally. With my public art proposal people would be able to touch it and interact with it, and this in itself would achieve my goal, which was for the art to have a presence in the minds of people.
