Friday, September 5, 2008

Day 77: Exterior Exhibition


street-side exhibition at the storefront

上有天堂 下有_杭
“Above there is Heaven, Below there is Hangzhou”

Yesterday I walked from Kenmare to 27th street (about 4.5 miles) - for art.

This is the show where I started, this is where I met Manal in the middle, and this is the show where we ended. The three shows took me on a journey from China to Poland to Japan (all via New York city streets).

I chose to post a photos from the Storefront For Art and Architecture since this was my first experience with an exterior exhibition. The space is getting a makeover inside, so they have activated the outside of the storefront as the exhibition space in the meantime. The "show" is a project by Mathieu Borysevicz and is called "Learning From Hangzhou". Reading the "wall texts" and taking in the images felt like a bit of a public performance as people walking by had to dodge me. There was something extra powerful about having one city literally inserted into the streets of another. You can't help but make connections.

So, indeed, perhaps Hangzhou isn't so different from many other places on the planet right now:
"Like every city, Hangzhou is a dynamic organism whose very fabric is disappearing as quickly as it is woven. Learning from Hangzhou attempts to record phenomena that will otherwise vanish in China’s amnesiac race towards hypermodernity; and to ultimately describe a civilization and its attendant environment that is alive with frenetic change. "
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from the wall text


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