What exactly do you do when New York City gives you nearly a half-mile worth of underground real estate to use as your own personal canvas? Well, if you’re a Mexican-Canadian artist named Rafael Lozano-Hammer, you fill that space with 150 speakers, 300 booming spotlights and enough reels of cord to cross the Atlantic. Then you invite an entire city down below, and quite literally allow the installation to engage in a conversation with each party – spotlights pulsing panoramically based on the level of ambient noise. The end result feels a little bit like the climactic scene from Close Encounters, especially during peak hours, which fall anywhere between 9 am and noon over the next couple of Saturdays. The real draw, however, is the fact that the Park Avenue Tunnel is actually open to pedestrians (and closed to traffic) during installation hours. It’s a pretty nice walk for a Saturday.
(Voice Tunnel by Rafael Lozano-Hammer will be on display in the Park Avenue Tunnel this Saturday, August 10th and next Saturday, August 17th, from 7 am to 1 pm.)
Five More For The Offing:
- PS Art 2013: Celebrating The Creative Spirit of New York City Kids featuring various artists @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Free, through 8/25, 5th Avenue & 82nd Street)
- Junkies’ Promises featuring various artists @ Paul Kasmin Gallery (Free, through 8/16, 515 West 27th Street)
- Paper Plus One featuring various artists @ Von Lintel Gallery (Free, through 8/23, 520 West 23rd Street)
- James Turrell @ The Guggenheim ($22 general admission, through 9/25, 1071 5th Avenue @ 89th Street)
- 10 Years of Wooster Collective featuring various artists @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery (Free, through August 24th, 529 West 20th Street)