Eliasson's NYC Waterfalls officially on through Oct. 13
For 110 days, artist Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls will pump 35,000 gallons of water per minute up and over four man-made towers – including one taller than the Statue of Liberty – inviting the public to the waterfront to not only explore the installation, but to have a good think.
“I don’t want the quantifiable elements of this project to be out in front of the unquantifiable,” Eliasson said Thursday during the Circle Line Downtown’s inaugural waterfalls cruise. While water can evoke dreams, it also has a very tangible side: “You get wet if you get into it,” he said.
And while you can’t swim under Eliasson’s waterfalls, you can approach them by boat, bike, on foot, or ponder them from the bridges or new bars and cafes set up just for the waterfalls. Two-years in the making, the Public Art Fund raised $13.5 million from private donors plus $2 million from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, acquired more than 20 permits and arranged for 270 tons of scaffolding (which was erected by the same guys who normally erect scaffolding around new York City buildings.) Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city’s Economic Development Corp. estimates the tourism boost will contribute $55 million to the city’s economy. (And yes, the international media were going bonkers at Thursday’s launch events.)
The exhibition consists of four waterfalls:
Under the Brooklyn Bridge at the Brooklyn-side anchorage (80 feet wide, 90 feet high)
Piers 4 and 5 in below the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (30 feet wide, 120 feet high)
(For reference, if they were buildings, they’d be nine to 12 stories each. The Statue of Liberty is 111 feet tall from her heel to her top.)
The waterfalls, here through October 13, will be turned on daily at 7 a.m. (but not until 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and remain on until 10 p.m. nightly. They’ll be lit up after sunset. However, they may have to be turned off during extreme winds, storms or a heat wave.
Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist, has been coming to New York since the 1980s. He’s well known for his large scale, often environmental works. He’s written an artist statement for NYC Waterfalls; two excerpts:
“When water flows down the East River, we tend to see it as a simple surface, framed by a neutral urban waterfront. By elevating it into waterfalls, I wish to amplify its physical and tangible presence while exposing the dynamics of natural forces such as gravity, wind, and daylight. My idea is to encourage people to identify more with the waterfront of New York City; this is a call for the revitalization of areas that until recently have been under-utilized as creative and recreational spaces because people have focused primarily on the interior grid of the City. There is a huge unrealized potential waiting to be explored and this is located right at our feet.”
“The Waterfalls appear in the midst of the dense social, environmental, and political tissue that makes up the heart of the City. They will give people the opportunity to reconsider their relationships to the spectacular surroundings. I hope to evoke experiences that are both individual and enhance a sense of collectivity: the Waterfalls will invite people to explore them on their own, but due to their size and locations, they will also generate expectations, opinions, and actions that can be shared. This relationship between individual experiences and the social contest is crucial for me. I believe that by seeing a work of art – a waterfall for instance – we become co-producers of the work and its social context. Taking part in this type of collaboration requires that we take responsibility within the city that we live.”
Eliasson’s waterfalls philosophy echoes some things he said in April at the Museum of Modern Art at the opening of his “Take Your Time” exhibition (which closes June 30.) His press conference there was held in a room dominated by an electrical fan on a rope arcing erratically around the room. He wondered aloud what affected the direction of the fan’s swings – does the temperature, the number of people in the room and their body heat, possibly change the artwork? “Maybe that turbulence constitutes the space,” he said. “It’s a dialogue between you and the space.”
At MoMA, the title of the exhibition itself asks the viewers to slow down, take your time, and think about your surroundings. “If you step out of commoditized time, you step into yourself.”
Likewise at the waterfalls on Thursday, Eliasson said “this is not about consuming a space. It’s about using a space. To evaluate your relationship to it.”
And like the swinging fan, the waterfalls change – with the wind, the tide, the clouds, the sun and moon, the temperature and even the passing boats. “This is something you want to see several times,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday. “It’s going to expand minds and give us a lot to think about.”
In this video clip, Eliasson explains how the waterfalls work and riffs on their sustainable aspects:
