featuring: Joe!
joe's immensity is too big to fit in one frame
this comes from my first and only roll of PhotoWorks 400, which has some very goofy qualities especially in low light
this thing is so funny. its a story like something out of @the-future-of-football, where the government decides this plaza in front of one of new york's big govt buildings needs some art, so someone inside the GSA cluelessly/foolishly gets the approval to hire Richard Serra to put up an art display. big mistake!
the result was a 120-foot-long, 12 foot high monolith of weathering steel - enormous, disruptive, alien, both at odds with and embodying the sanitized surroundings of the federal plaza. on the piece, Serra said:
The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step, the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes.
it only took 8 years for bigwigs, feds, new yorkers saying "I'm Walkin' Here!", and ronald reagan to remove the sculpture through a public hearing, jury, and series of trials. arguments against it included that it presented a security and surveillance risk, that explosions would deflect off of it into government property, and that it blocked out the sun (despite being only 12 feet high). Tilted Arc has since remained in storage, broken up into 3 large pieces in a warehouse, likely never to see the light of day again. it was meant to disturb and affect this one particular spot and it was just too good at it
personally i think this thing fucking rules - wandering into/around Joe (the above chosted sculpture) is like discovering an alien ruin or a long term nuclear warning site - Tilted Arc is like a spaceship that landed in the middle of new york and everybody just wanted it to go away. (worth noting that, throughout public hearings, many influential artists and thinkers argued against Tilted Arc's removal, over double the amount of speakers speaking in favor of its destruction (so basically they're based cause i agree with keith haring))
don't forget Serra had it placed in such a way that workers walking through the courtyard had to go around it instead of walking straight through like they had previously. this is an instance of a "power move"
