| Nina Katchadourian's Please, Please, Pleased to Meet'cha is a sound project inspired by the elusive task of describing birdsong. Originally installed at Wave Hill in the Bronx in 2006, for the installation at MetroTech, the artist has placed six sound systems along the park's central corridor. As people pass through this urban park, they hear recordings of human voices in the trees, vocalizing birdsong. Because the human attempt to describe birdsong is a kind of translation problem—from aural to written, from animal to human sound—the artist asked UN translators and interpreters to interpret the sounds. None of the people involved in the project had previously heard the particular birds, so their performances were instantaneous interpretations rather than studied vocal translations. Suggesting that human communication might have the innate ability to cross linguistic (even species) boundaries, this work resonates within the specific urban population of Brooklyn and spreads out to include its ecological surroundings. The birds in the project are all native to New York City and include the Chestnut-sided Warbler, White-Throated Sparrow, Grey Catbird, Red-Winged Blackbird, Black-Capped Chickadee, and Common Grackle.
Nina Katchadourian was born in Stanford, California and grew up spending every summer on a small island in the Finnish archipelago. She received a BA from Brown University and an MFA from University of California at San Diego. Her work exists in a wide variety of media, including photography, sculpture, video and sound and has been exhibited domestically and internationally at places such as Artists Space, New York (2006); New Langton Arts, San Francisco (2006); and Turku Art Museum, Turku, Finland (2006); PS1/MoMA (2004), New York; and Serpentine Gallery, London (2000).
Ongoing at MetroTech: Tony Matelli's Stray Dog (1998), James Angus's Basketball Dropped from 35,000 feet at Moment of Impact (1999), and Tom Otterness's Alligator (1996) and
Visionary (1997), all commissioned by Public Art Fund, continue to be exhibited within the MetroTech Commons.
MetroTech Center is located in Downtown Brooklyn between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue at Myrtle Avenue. Viewing hours are dawn to dusk daily for outdoor works, Monday through
Friday 8am to 6pm for Jedediah Caesar's and Paula Hayes's installations in the lobby of One MetroTech Center. Subway: A, C, F to Jay Street/Borough Hall, exit at Myrtle Promenade; R to Lawrence Street; Q to Dekalb Avenue. This exhibition is free.
Public Art Fund is New York's leading presenter of artists' projects, new commissions, installations and exhibitions in public spaces. For over 30 years, the Public Art Fund has been committed to working with emerging and established artists to produce innovative exhibitions of contemporary art throughout New York City. By bringing artworks outside the traditional context of museums and galleries, the Public Art Fund provides a unique platform for an unparalleled public encounter with the art of our time.
Recent critically acclaimed exhibitions and presentations include Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror at Rockefeller Center; Sarah Sze's Corner Plot and Damien Ortega's Obelisco Transportable at Doris C. Freedman Plaza; Sarah Morris's Robert Towne at Lever House; and Alexander Calder in New York at City Hall Park.
Since 1993, Public Art Fund's program at MetroTech has exhibited new commissions and recent works by more than fifty emerging and established artists including Vito Acconci, Liz Craft, Jacob Dyrenforth, Roman de Salvo, Rachel Foullon, Amy Gartrell, Luis Gispert, Corin Hewitt, Matthew Day Jackson, Matt Johnson, Peter Kreider, Tony Matelli, Ryan McGuinness, Dave McKenzie, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Mamiko Otsubo, Tom Otterness, Roxy Paine, Ester Partegàs, Peter Rostovsky, Valeska Soares, Do-Ho Suh, Marc Swanson and Ursula von Rydingsvard.
Everyday Eden at MetroTech Center is part of an ongoing program organized by the Public Art Fund and sponsored by MetroTech Commons Associates, an organization that consists of MetroTech companies Bear Stearns & Company, Forest City Ratner Companies, JPMorganChase, National Grid, WellChoice and Polytechnic University. Special thanks to Forest City Ratner Companies and First New York Partners.
Robert Fischer's As Above, So Below is a project of the Public Art Fund program In the Public Realm, which is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
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