New York City is known for it’s amazing collection of artists,
starving and striving, that grace the pages of noted photography and
design magazines and other publications. There are also those that
claim to be artists and, given the amount of bad installations that
some call art, they also call themselves artists. These are the
cretins that I dislike for the simple reason that they don’t really
create art they think that by making a simple blue dot in the middle
of a page is art. In that same vein, I give you the NYC Waterfalls
project. I don’t believe that the NYC Waterfalls is actually good
art because not only does it not communicate anything to me I
interpret it as expensive scaffolding that does nothing but have
water trickle over it’s frame and leaves me desiring an emotional
response even if it’s not the same as what the artist originally had
in mind when creating the piece.
First off this art installation, and I use that term loosely, is made
from scaffolding, pipes and pumps. The installations are present at
four locations along the East River. The location that I observed is
the Brooklyn Bridge installation, so I will be talking about that
primarily. I went above on the bridge itself, to see if I could hear
the water, and I heard nothing above the roar of regular traffic. So
much for the power of water, and the art demonstrating it. Then I
went on the Manhattan side of the bridge and noticed that the
waterfall was a pitiful pitter-patter and not the amazing gargantuan
of a masterpiece that I was lead to believe from the pictures. It’s
safe to say, I was very disappointed.
Who is the artist that would create something like this? Olafur
Elaisson. He is a Danish born artist that works now in Berlin and
Copenhagen. He is an accomplished artist but I think that this time
he shot a little too far into the dark. He alienated a lot of people
that were standing looking at the installation, including myself,
that think that art can be kooky and crazy but still should invoke
some kind of emotional response. The website for the project has
many resources including the brochure and his idea of what the art is
portraying. I say that he stopped short of actually getting that
point across to me. I see giant rainmakers not waterfalls. Olafur
would have probably gotten his vision across if he didn’t skimp on
the size and power of the pumps. Waterfalls are giant roaring
entities not gentle water slowly drifting to the ground.
The most important thing that I can take away from this experience
and this installation is to analyze my work at the end. Does my work
allow me to take away what I originally planned when I started the
piece? If I can answer that question yes, then I can say that I
have done something good and also know that the same crime against
art that Olafur happened upon, I didn’t stumble into. Public art is
something that should be enjoyed by the public but since it is for
that purpose it should be done right to effectively communicate the
message intended by the artist even if the art is open to
interpretations.