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Two weeks ago, I mentioned the film “Man On Wire” in this post, wondering if Philippe Petit’s incredible 1974 wire-walking feat between the twin towers might be “the greatest outdoor performance in this city’s history”:

Naturally, one of my dear readers, Beg to Differ, not only dismissed my “greatest” thought, but the idea of it being art at all: “And what was all the fuss about? “Work of art”? Please.”

At that point, I hadn’t seen the movie, and wondered briefly whether I was overemphasizing (memory and its tricks) the importance of Petit’s act. But I’ve now seen the film, and feel even more strongly that this was no mere stunt, or manifestation of man’s need to conquer (which is the only, totally inadequate way in which I can try to understand the inexplicable madness that might lead a person to climb K2).

“The object of my dream doesn’t exist yet,” Petit says in the documentary, of his feeling, many years ago, upon hearing about plans to build the World Trade Center.

What better way to describe the drive to make art? Petit had no why, just a need to inhabit (and disrupt) the most uninhabitable of urban landscapes with an incredibly beautiful, and human, act. The art lay in his intent more than anywhere else.

I was talking about Petit with a friend, and she brought up “The Waterboard Thrill Ride” installation at Coney Island (you can listen to WNYC cultural reporter Siddhartha Mitter’s segment on it here.), wondering if I thought that it counted as art, or protest, or both. I haven’t been out to see it, so I thought I would ask all of you …

Finally … another friend reminded me that the twin towers had inspired other acts of artistic anarchy, and told me about “The B-Thing,” by the art group Gelitin, whose members somehow, early one fine morning in 2000, managed to suction out a window on one of the WTC’s highest floors, wrangle a narrow balcony out there and pose for the camera. You have to wonder if this “unbelievable, completely illegal, and fully secret stunt” owes its existence to Petit.