The Plan

Monday, December 15, 2008

The Plan

Many of the pictures below are roughs from the proposed website www.OnThisSiteStood.com, which will accompany the project. Click on any picture to view it bigger.

Above: the proposed landing page from www.OnThisSiteStood.com.

Below: A summary of the plan.

The plaques will be temporarily fastened to the fence with theft proof bolts and felt pads so that they'll leave no mark on the fence. Below are some of the plaques I hope to make.

Affixed to the fence, near where the sculptures will hang, I'll have a weather proof plexi "take one" box with rack cards in them explaining the project. The rack cards will have the URL of the website and will answer most any question that anyone might have regarding the project.

1 comment:

GeorgeDecember 17, 2008 at 11:37 AM
LOVE IT!
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ON THIS SITE STOOD -- LOWER MANHATTAN

Special thanks to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the September 11th Fund for their support of this project and to the U.S. General Services Administration for incredible moral and logistical support and to Meg Duguid and Clare Weiss of the NYC Dept. of Parks and Recreation for their hard work and creativity.

"On this site stood" is a project to install sculptures --historical markers and plaques -- on buildings and in parks around lower Manhattan from May through September of 2009. A website will accompany the exhibition, to address questions. Its URL will be www.OnThisSiteStood.com and its elements can be seen here.

The sculptures look just like traditional “historical” markers and plaques but instead of highlighting a civil war battle or the birthplace of a famous person, they highlight a contemporary social or political issue, adding the weight of historical importance to today’s concerns. The text on each one is carefully crafted to provoke thought without alienating the viewer. One reads:

ON THIS SITE STOOD
RY BRAUER, TYPICAL AMERICAN
TEEN. BY THE AGE OF 18, HE
HAD WITNESSED OVER 30,000
MURDERS ON TV.

The plaques are a NYC-specific incarnation of a project I'm still working on called "The I-75 Project" (http://www.TheI-75Project.com) in which the free-standing markers would be placed in each of the 50 rest areas up and down the length of Interstate 75, which runs from Michigan down to Florida. These markers were chosen as last year's Main St. Sculpture Project for The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/magnusson.php)
where they gathered great reviews from museum visitors, local press, the blogosphere and The New York Times. (review enclosed herein) They change the way people look at historical markers, change the way they look at art and hopefully may even change the way they look at some of our current affairs and that's what they'll do in lower Manhattan, too.

The text on them is carefully crafted to engage, not enrage, to draw the viewers in, to plant a message that just might resonate. I love the idea of public art that makes people think, and socially conscious art that’s accessible and inviting instead of inaccessible and insulting. That's the art I'm trying to create with this project. I hope I've succeeded.

On this site stood - lower Manhattan

Monday, December 15, 2008

The Plan

1 comment:

ON THIS SITE STOOD -- LOWER MANHATTAN

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