The Arts in New York City

Art Is Everywhere

As I walked toward the subway for some reason the steel tree catches my eye. I would walk by these trees every morning with no reaction, so why now? It hit me. This was art. After some reading I found out the three steel structures are named: Conjoined, Defunct, and Erratic. These pieces of art made by Roxy Paine were made to juxtapose industrialization and nature.

Conjoined is a combination of two trees where it is hard to tell where one tree begins and the other tree ends. I saw a struggle between the two trees. To me, this struggle is a microcosm of maintaining the balance between the natural and the synthetic.

Defunct is a single tree that is undergoing the process of decomposition while also providing food for the fungus that has started to grow. It shows the relationship of life and death. How in order to create man-made structures you must disrupt nature.

In geology, an erratic rock is one that bears little or no relationship to its underlying environment. Erratic calls upon the scientific definition. The fractured surface of the boulder made it look exotic. Once you add that it is located at a park in New York City, you can definitely tell that this object was not from here.

So what did I learn from this experience? Art is everywhere, you just have to pay attention and look up. If you have some time just walk through Madison Square Park, it is only two blocks from Baruch and free. Who knows? You might even enjoy it.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Daniel Panit, WRITING ASSIGNMENTS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.