wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comment from M
Date: July 21, 2008, 12:06 pm

My experience with the waterfalls is that as “destination” art, they are a bit underwhelming. However, when I was driving to Brooklyn one day, and saw the assortment of waterfalls at various points on the river, I found them to be very beautiful.

Comment from David
Date: July 21, 2008, 1:47 pm

I wish one were in Union Square and I could stand under it.

Comment from notimpressed
Date: July 21, 2008, 1:49 pm

I was not impressed with the waterfalls “exhibit”. Even though I was able to glimpse all of them while on the Governors Island ferry, I did not have that same awe-inspiring feeling that I got when I saw The Gates a couple of years ago. Also, they are not as accessible to everyone as The Gates were. Granted, it’s nice to look at something like the waterfalls as something of a relaxation tool, but as public art? I don’t think so.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 21, 2008, 2:05 pm

Thanks, everyone. Keep it coming. I was just on Pier 17, and there were lots of tourists snapping photos. Guess it’s working for someone … I have only seen them from a stationary vantage point, would be interesting to see what they look like zooming down the FDR or something.

Notimpressed, would love to hear what about the Gates you found awe-inspiring. High praise!

David: I think you speak for us all.

Comment from Meg
Date: July 21, 2008, 2:27 pm

They don’t do much for me. It seems like a lot of money and effort for something that so anemic and orderly when compared to the real thing. Maybe if they had just a bit of wildness to them? As it is I see them and wish I were looking at a naturally occuring waterfall instead.

Comment from ngelpi
Date: July 21, 2008, 4:04 pm

It’s a difficult task to judge the value of art through the cost associated with producing it. For me public art is always about evoking a heightened sense of awareness through some cultural perspective. I find this type of discussion “was it worth the $15million” suspect. How do we understand “worth?” For me it’s the same type of economic mentality which erodes cultural and progressive innovation…another example is critiquing global warming from the perspective of how it will effect our national economy…a direct effect yes but a critique of evidence it is not. Olafur Eliasson’s waterfalls change the landscape of lower manhattan…I find them elegant and a welcome interruption into an otherwise overlooked space…even after they are gone the space may still be remembered in reference to their absence therefore accomplishing the goal of public arts mission…to draw attention to something otherwise overlooked.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 21, 2008, 4:13 pm

Hey, thanks so much for your comment, and point well taken. I think it’s fair to raise the costs involved, especially in a country with such a tortured recent history of funding for the arts, and given that the city promotes works like this in the context of cost/benefit analysis. But it can certainly be a narrow and warped lens through which to view art, and thank you for reminding us of that.

I suspect, for many of the installation’s critics, the waterfalls do not change the landscape enough, leading to a “$15 million, and this is it?” response.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 21, 2008, 4:22 pm

I’m also interested in the definition of public art’s mission as drawing attention to something otherwise overlooked. I think of it more as serving to alter how we experience a space (though perhaps that is splitting hairs with reference to your definition), even to make us forget the space.

But the East River is such a charged space, especially in that section with the bridges - do you really think it is overlooked? Would love to hear more on this subject.

Comment from ngelpi
Date: July 21, 2008, 4:45 pm

Claudia, I agree, no doubt, perspective and experience are linked…ultimately through the production of new subjectivities.

…I appreciate this topic because it seems to me everyone I speak with only critiques the waterfalls from the perspective of a $15 million price tag. If they were $7 million would they be any more or less successful?

For me it seems rather than living in a place where one could be enthusiastic that cultural objects being contributed to the cities public forum aren’t only from economically motivated developers, the bottom line is on everyones mind. I find it concerning that it has become such ubiquitous mode of critique.

Perhaps a better discussion might be should the public arts commission be subjected to the ebb and flow of the cities economic markets…? Or for that matter should Public works be so explicitly considered a way to bolster economic support.

The nature of cutting edge experimentation leads to the possibility that it might not work exactly as planned…this is the discussion I would like to have…”Did it work for you?”

Comment from Aynsley V
Date: July 21, 2008, 11:19 pm

I saw the waterfalls from a subway going over the river and they just looked like glorified scaffolding.

Like notimpressed, I responded to the Gates more strongly. I found that experience totally magical–something about people (people in New York!) slowing down and looking above and to the side, not just straight ahead. That installation was on a more human scale so it forced interaction. And there was something about gratuitous beauty on a big scale that delighted me.

The money is a whole other issue…

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 22, 2008, 12:04 am

“the production of new subjectivities” - sounds like a great title. For something.

You know, in reading my opening post, I did slant it more toward the cost of the waterfalls than I should have. I found the YouTube video so amusing - these droll, anonymous commentators - and her question just made me laugh. But you’re right, the most important question, the real “bottom line,” I think, is “did it work for you?”

I do not think I would talk about this installation in the context of cutting edge experimentation - it doesn’t feel to me that he is pushing at anything in a meaningful way. But I would like to hear why you do. I wish more of the big splashy works had that sense, that this wasn’t what was planned, that it didn’t quite work but was messy in some vital manner - that would be exciting, and elegant, and worth it. Well, worth $7 million anyway …. (sorry, couldn’t resist)

Aynsley, I love your thoughts on the Gates - I wasn’t blown away by that installation either, but there was something inexplicable about them that delighted. I did walk through them during a snowstorm - fabulous. Although Central Park during a snowstorm is fabulous all on its own.

Comment from paul
Date: July 22, 2008, 12:02 pm

As a practitioner of interactive street art I was skeptical of the waterfalls from the begnning. Eliasson is an artist who primarily creates work for the holy spaces of a gallery, and I might add, does very nice work for those spaces. But to be given 15 million to create public work on such a large scale I think is a disservice by those making the financial decisions.

The only explanation of the work is what the public receives from well written press releases (in the budget), and they don’t even suffice. Asking us to see the nature that surrounds our city in a different way is hardly a reason to erect scaffolding in the nyc waterways and telling us this is art.

The project itself is definitely underwhelming. It looked nice with all 4 lit up as I took a taxi across the brooklyn bridge, but on inspection from either side of the river it simply brings up the annoyance of scaffolding in city streets that have sprung a leak. Large metal cages dumped in our river with rather uninspired water pouring from them. It would be nice to have an artist not add to the junk humans tend to create and dispose of, but to make something beautiful and in context with it.

A couple weeks before the waterfalls install I was able to catch a fire fighting boat going under the brooklyn bridge with all of it’s hoses on and shooting water in all directions around the boat. This was wonderful, an object meant for a specific fire fighting purpose, and whether for cleaning purposes or a display of beauty with all the hoses on, it was a moving poetic fountain of water, much more interesting and educational than turning the nyc harbor into what amounts to nothing more than wild water kingdom, just without the enjoyable slides.

Why so much money to one person? And how does this get sold through? who’s deciding what art is? What PUBLIC art is? why were other projects not considered?

Comment from ngelpi
Date: July 22, 2008, 12:09 pm

Experimentation/innovation can often equals scale transition, something any architect or Nasa engineer has experienced. Things at a larger scale don’t behave as they do when miniature study models. Certainly we could consider the waterfalls and it’s effects at a much larger scale than Christo’s “gates”…not as many but a scale shift to be sure…the difference between a cloud and an airplane or a swarm of bees and an elephant… its success or failure to compel is palpable in the comments we see…”Not Enough,” “Like the Leaks in the Union Sq sub station,” “Like a NY Rainstorm…” I find these valid points to make in reference to the scale of the piece…however not in the context of budget, rather as with any piece of art in the context of it’s own history. If we consider olafur eliasson’s other works recently installed in the MoMA or at London’s Tate…consider the glowing “Sun” installation which compelled Londoners to stop and simply sit on the ground to bask in it’s aura, there is no judgment of intent…rather just an engagement of what is…it just is…something which was always there yet realized for the first time…

I actually find the waterfalls not consistent with the rendered images published beforehand in terms of volume or mass, but the effects are no less present with this or that…the ephemeral quality of the delicate falls are more like a scaled up version of the piece recently in the MoMA exhibition…“Your strange certainty still kept,” in this piece water drips from ceiling to floor as strobe lights seem to freeze the state of the drips mid air. http://media.moma.org/subsites/2008/olafureliasson/#/works/9/ Not a massive volume of water but a focused lense at a state of water’s materiality rarely otherwise seen. Consistently, the waterfalls shift scales between ‘still’ surface tension in the harbor and billions of drops in motion where it doesn’t otherwise exist “Water” not necessarily understood from viewing it as a 2D surface plane. Does seeing massive volumes of still water as ’surface’ against the backdrop of a delicate waterfalls mist change anything?…indeed. But more importantly one might ask…What is a waterfall anyway?

Comment from Evan
Date: July 22, 2008, 12:23 pm

I’ve only seen the waterfalls from a subway going over the bridge. Everyone else on the train and I looked out, so I guess the falls got our attention. But I find them to be rather menacing, and similar to all of our city’s towering skyscrapers, except with water. I don’t really like the idea of combining a precious natural resource with something so artificial.

I think the Gates were not only more accessible, but also more effective at bringing people together. And I truly believe that one of public art’s purposes is to build community. Like you, Claudia, I saw the Gates during a snowstorm, and even though it was cold and windy, everyone was smiling and interacting with one another (yes, New Yorkers talking to strangers) as we all marveled at the Gates. I felt like the Gates took me on a journey, with others and also alone, as I walked along the path through the park. As for the waterfalls, they don’t seem to engage viewers nearly as much (or for nearly as long), nor do they facilitate interaction.

Comment from Meg
Date: July 22, 2008, 1:53 pm

I don’t mind the idea of, “combining a precious natural resource with something so artificial,” per se. I think that there are all sorts of interesting things an artist could do with that, whether it be forcing people to think about the contrasts between constructed and naturally occurring landscapes/environments, the ways that nature persists even within large cities, something else entirely…

Eliasson was quoted in the NYT saying that the project is, “about using a space to evaluate your relationship with it.” I don’t think that the falls really succeed in that. Maybe this is, as Evan points out, because they don’t foster the kind of interactivity that the Gates (which I also preferred) did. Maybe it’s because the scaffolding and the lack of volume make the falls seem like they have much relation to the natural world; rather than making me think about my relationship to the space they seem to me to blend in with the rest of the visual noise of the city.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 22, 2008, 3:38 pm

wow y’all … how did I get such smart readers? Through no effort of my own, I’m sure.

Evan, I wonder if we “met” under the Gates - we should pretend so, in any case. I’m interested that you find the waterfalls menacing, please expand on that if you feel so inclined.

Or you could meditate on ngelpi’s koan-like question (does ngelpi have a first name, perchance?), “What is a waterfall?”

The issue of scale is so intrinsic to this city, and I agree, Meg, that the contrast between organic and man-made might have particular resonance here.

Paul, your question about public art, and who decides/anoints, is a great one. It made me think of the condescension that is often attendant to discussion about community art, which lacks the stamp of high art world approval.

The poor Culturist can’t keep up with all of these threads - but keep going!

Comment from bj
Date: July 24, 2008, 2:32 pm

Last week I had relatives from North Carolina in town who went to see the waterfalls and commented: “Well, perhaps for people enfolded in tall buildings all the time, they could be some sort of release.” My own initial experience of them produced a similar blase feeling, yet seeing them a second time, at night, I experienced a different set of thoughts… Perhaps for a city which has witnessed in the past decade, rather more catastrophic falls, these falls evoke an after-effect of mourning–as if these towers were apparatuses of tears. (I quickly attempted to hush these thoughts as they seemed way out of proportion with and inappropriate for their object and too sentimental). Yet maybe the “counter-spectacle” effect, the fact that these things don’t dazzle and overwhelm the eye (I had to squint to make them out the other night), is not only some sort of homeopathic echo, but on the right route (even if ultimately not quite compelling) of a proper, mature response to the catastrophe.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 24, 2008, 11:22 pm

That’s an interesting analysis, bj - and I know what you mean about the thoughts seeming out of proportion to the object; it’s funny how sometimes one feels too generous as an interpreter, that there is somehow some intangible difference between work that has “earned” the thoughts one has about it, and work that just seems to be in the right place at the right time.

I, too, liked the waterfalls the most at night - specifically the one under the Brooklyn Bridge. But, like Evan, I found it menacing rather than like “an after-effect of mourning” (that’s lovely). This was when I was directly over the fall and, looking down as I walked along, I could see the turbulently churning water far below, between the slats of the wooden walkway. I always look down when I walk over the bridge, and am always deliciously unnerved - the water’s chaos heightened this, if only for a moment.

Comment from Parr
Date: July 25, 2008, 8:25 am

The waterfalls are a bust. My 6 year old nephew does more interesting construction with his erector set. PLUS $15.5 M and another cook the books estimate of ROI. It becomes more clear daily that tax $ in NY (city and state) are distributed based on the gov equivalent of insider trading — merit be damned.

Comment from Laurie
Date: July 25, 2008, 1:50 pm

This morning I heard the piece on WNYC about the Waterfalls and was sorry to hear that many people decided they didn’t like these works of art. I have been impressed by the Waterfalls from the first day, and every time I see them I like them more. I like the fact that they don’t pop out luridly from the background of sober industrial structures or low lying landscape. I like that you have to scan the horizon for them and then you spot them with an Ahh, there it is! I like that you can see them from many different places and from many different angles. My husband and I were inspired to put in our kayak in Red Hook and paddle across the channel to Governor’s island to see the falls there. We got as close as we could, for yet another view, feeling, as well as seeing, the power of the falling water and the turbulent water of New York Harbor. I keep getting ideas for visiting other places to view them–like the park in DUMBO where you get a fairly close-up side view of the Brooklyn Bridge falls.
And from this blog, I am informed that you can see them from above, through the wooden walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge. I want to visit more of them with the kayak, too. The falls are making me look at New York City’s waterways more than I ever have. In turn, I’m reminded we live and work on islands here. They are making me think about nature and culture. I talk to my friends and my teenage children about the falls. The last time I remember such discussion about art was when the Gates were here. I’m dismayed that so many compare the Waterfalls unfavorably to the Gates. They seem like totally different projects. In fact, the falls have made me nostalgic for the Gates and I regret that they were so short-lived. I’m appreciative that the falls at least will be around for a few months, to be visited and revisited, thought through, and well-contemplated. I predict that maybe even the skeptics and detractors will miss their unassuming presence when they’re gone.

Comment from Niels
Date: July 25, 2008, 4:17 pm

Your comment that they are too polite was ridiculous, it presumes that anything in nyc must be rude and in your face to have any impact. It actually infuriated me. And then you lament that New York is changing and don’t we all lament losing it’s rudeness? People have been lamenting losing the new york they know and love since new york became a city. I was born and raised in Brooklyn and know not of what you speak. Perhaps if Olafur had put a disco ball behind each waterfall you would prefer it. Where is your imagination? These falls are strongly rooted in our physical reality and place but also take you to somewhere else. I first spotted them in person from the BQE and they were a surprise that revealed the landscape anew. On the waterfalls ferry ride, seeing the way the falls worked with the landscape, complemented it’s verticality, and reflected our city’s underlying structure by exposing it’s own scaffold structure. At the same time the water falling and shifting in the wind always moving, always changing, even though anchored to the same location, pulled me out of the cityscape into a reverie that moving water has the capability to generate. In an era of everything screaming for my attention I appreciate a work that allows for contemplation and incorporating my imagination

I really liked the waterfalls and feel that it is a not fair to compare then to the Gates project. The Gates were a celebration of place well loved, where it became a destination to walk a space we are familiar with and feel what is good about it. The waterfalls are more about a sense of discovery about a space that is underappreciated by a majority of New Yorkers.

The 15.5 million price tag was privately raised so I wish people would stop bringing that up.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 25, 2008, 4:38 pm

Well, “unassuming” might have been a better word, but I don’t tend to like my art polite, and I don’t really think that the comment does presume that everything here has to be rude to have an impact. We were just being a little playful.

I’m thrilled that you like the waterfalls, Niels. And good point about New Yorkers loving to lament the disappearing of New York. But the point I was making very specifically applies to artists having an increasingly difficult time living and working in New York, and I think it’s an important one. Actually, I think Caleb made that point a lot better than I did:

http://blogs.wnyc.org/culturist/2008/07/24/eliasson-again/#comment-286

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 25, 2008, 4:38 pm

And I do like me some disco balls …

Comment from Helene Berson
Date: July 27, 2008, 5:28 pm

Have just read thru the numerous comments since your broadcast which I did hear and appreciate very much.
I am in the camp of the very underwhelmed regarding the Waterfalls (I use the term advisedly).
In addition to finding the public expense something of a slap in the face, I think the falls are surprisingly unartful and I love water and relate to the water that surrounds this island in so many ways.
Your comment abt. how remote and inaccesible really was an important articulation for me.
Then on Friday nite I happened upon a seemingly spontaneous bit of NYC street art; art in the streets on East 4th St. betwn 1& 2nd Ave where some admittedly talented musicians and tap dancers put on a terrific performance for anyone who was lucky enough to pass by that evening. These folks were pretty much under the radar and not being funded (other than passing the traditional buskers hat) and they were cookin’.
The contrast in accessibility betw the remote and distant Waterfalls and music and dance that one could not only enjoy by listening but also participate in by dancing in the street or just swaying to familiar standards was striking.
They call themselves Club 124 and promise to be do it again on another beautiful summer nite.
Lucky us.

Comment from Counter Critic
Date: July 28, 2008, 10:54 pm

Just drove home on the FDR, coming from the Upper West Side, heading to Brooklyn. The waterfalls at night, lit up, are very satisfying. The one under the Brooklyn Bridge is particularly mysterious; it even looks like it might be a hologram; digital.

But, during the day, that’s when these things just turn into vague gray and white structures of little to no impact. Sadly for this installation, night is shortest during the summer.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 29, 2008, 12:36 pm

Thanks for the tip, Helene! I’ll be on the lookout for Club 124 … happening onto performances like that is one of the best things about living in this city.

CC, you’ve probably noticed the pattern by now: as long as people are either moving fast, or it’s dark, the waterfalls get a thumbs up. But if not …