Ai Weiwei installation ready to depart from 7th Street

An EVG reader shared these photos from earlier the morning on Seventh Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue... where workers were prepping to remove the Ai Weiwei installation from between the buildings here...



Here...



This was, as you know, part of a citywide project in collaboration with the Public Art Fund titled "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors."

The fences were officially on display from Oct. 12 through Feb. 11. Workers removed the installation on Cooper Union on Monday and Tuesday.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Ai Weiwei on 7th Street

So long to Ai Weiwei's 'Good Fence' at Cooper Union

Today is removing day at Cooper Union for the Ai Weiwei installation ... part of a citywide project in collaboration with the Public Art Fund titled "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors." (Thanks to EVG reader Riian Kant-McCormick for this photo!)

The installation of the installations started in early October ... ahead of the official debut on Oct. 12. Yesterday marked the last day for the "Fences" project. Around here, installations were also on view at 48 E. Seventh St., 189 Chrystie St., 248 Bowery and the Essex Street Market.

According to The New York Times, "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" is "a reflection on the growing hostility toward immigrants and the rise of nationalism throughout the world."

The installation was commissioned by the Public Art Fund in celebration of its 40th anniversary.

Ai Weiwei on 7th Street

[Photo yesterday by EVG reader Russell K.]

As previously reported, artist-activist Ai Weiwei's installations titled "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" are going up around the city.

Yesterday, workers were installing the site-specific fencing at 48 E. Seventh St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. (Other local installations include 189 Chrystie St., 248 Bowery, Cooper Union and the Essex Street Market.)


[Photo by Derek Berg]

The press materials note that "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" is "a reflection on the growing hostility toward immigrants and the rise of nationalism throughout the world."

This collaboration with the Public Art Fund is officially on view starting tomorrow through Feb. 11.


[Photo by DB]

Ai Weiwei installation work underway at Cooper Union, Washington Square Park

[Photo by EVG reader Ronnie]

In recent days Ai Weiwei's two-dimensional banners arrived on parts of Cooper Square and the Bowery... ahead of Weiwei's citywide installations titled "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" that debuts on Oct. 12 (and on view through Feb. 11, 2018)...


[Photo by EVG reader Ronnie]

Around here, installations (called "site-specific interventions") will be on view at 48 E. Seventh St., 189 Chrystie St., 248 Bowery, Cooper Union and the Essex Street Market. (Read more about all this here.)

According to The New York Times, "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" is "a reflection on the growing hostility toward immigrants and the rise of nationalism throughout the world."

Work continues on the installation at the Cooper Union Foundation Building ...



The work here is titled "Five Fences," and "will fill the open arched spaces on the north portico façade of the building, simultaneously covering these open spaces but remaining porous," according to the description at the Open Art Fund.



EVG reader Ronnie also sent along a shot of work at the arch in Washington Square Park...



As the Washington Square Park Blog first reported, some members of the Washington Square Association are upset about the placement of the installation in the arch. Community members contend that the installation will compromise the arch’s own artistic integrity and disrupt the annual holiday tree lighting, a tradition since 1924.

In the end, Community Board 2 reportedly voted last month in favor of erecting Weiwei's work under the arch. The Park's holiday tree will be moved closer to the fountain for this year.

The installation was commissioned by the Public Art Fund in celebration of its 40th anniversary.

Nostalgia for 1980s New York in Beijing

From the Times:

What’s interesting about “Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993” at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, in Beijing, is that the Americans I know who have visited the exhibit, particularly those born and raised in New York, tend to focus on the location photos: the raw, grimy East Village sidewalks; Tompkins Square Park with its anti-gentrification protesters and drag queens; shirtless students at St. Marks Place; the bums on the Bowery and the gritty sidewalks and graffiti-covered subway cars that inspired “Stranger Than Paradise,” Jim Jarmusch’s 1984 film set partially in New York City. They are drawn to them precisely because they induce feelings of nostalgia for 1980s New York.

But Chinese visitors viewing the exhibit, most of whom have never been to New York (or America, for that matter), tend to focus on the Chinese people in the photos. Where the typical American will focus on how much Times Square has changed from the 1980s to now, the typical Chinese viewer looking at that same photo will focus on what looks like a Chinese immigrant sitting on top of a taxi.