While it’s better to love than not to love, and thus, it’s better to have public art than to have none at all, I’m wondering if Miranda July’s “11 Things” sculpture installation, which first appeared at the Venice Biennale, was installed in the wrong New York City park. Since June, July’s whimsical sculptures — set up as pedastals or soapboxes or props upon which visitors can sit or stand and with insightful, telling intimate messages written across them — seem to go completely forgotten in this cynical stomping ground for world-weary Manhattanites or are treated like outdoor furniture for park dwellers. Look at what I mean:
Straw fedora hat-wearing guy is using the “This is my little girl. She is brave … ” pedastal as a coffee table to hold his stuff during his impromptu guitar-strumming session. Miranda told ArtInfo.com that kids would likely be the biggest benefactors of these objects, even though their messages can include adult jokes, but is Union Square, a non-toursity haven for hipsters making their way from downtown to uptown and the homeless, the right place for this? What about Central Park or Battery Park, which are brimming with out-of-towners, where people are in the mood for fun, for an experience? Union Square Park is where the strung-out collapse and the avid chess players set up shop. It just doesn’t seem like anyone’s paying attention to the art.
Though, here’s another picture that shows how the sculptures can thrive, when people engage with them, from Gothamist’s Flickr account (below). Maybe I was just there on an off day. Admittedly, it was 95 degrees in the shade.
