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For immediate release Public Art Fund presents? Artist Kirsten Mosher invites New Yorker's
to step up to home plate and play ball Ball Park Traffic converts the intersection of 22nd Street and 9th Avenue into a baseball diamond with backstop, bases, and home plate New York, NY - As New Yorker's make their way along 22nd Street to the art galleries in Chelsea, they will encounter Kirsten Mosher's Ball Park Traffic at the corner of 9th Avenue. Her public art installation, merges this much-traveled intersection with a baseball diamond -equipped with a regulation home plate and bases, a backstop, pitcher's mound and even base lines. The focal point of Mosher's piece is the backstop, created by inverting the existing fence forming the corner of the Chelsea Garden Center and mounting home plate onto the sidewalk. As pedestrians cross the street between home plate and either first or third base, the converted crosswalks extend onto the sidewalk to form base lines marking the boundaries of play. No baseball diamond would be complete without a pitcher's mound, in this case painted in the center of the intersection using the traditional Department of Transportation thermal paint. Ball Park Traffic will remain on view through March 15, 1998. Kirsten Mosher's art draws attention to the quiet and sometimes hidden systems and patterns that govern our everyday lives. She has selected to stage Ball Park Traffic in what is perhaps the most commonly used urban system-the traffic intersection. Overlapping this system and its established rules of "stop and go," "walk/don't walk" with those of baseball, America's favorite pastime, Mosher not only skews both sets of rules, but also the functionality of the elements associated with each. Mosher also draws attention to New Yorkers incessant rush from one sidewalk to the other and the revving of car engines eager for a change of lights. Base lines are formed as natural outgrowths of the existing cross walks, while the corner buildings mark the location for the bases. An existing corner of chain link fence is altered to form a backstop, opening up the space for pedestrian traffic to cross home plate. Kirsten Mosher was commissioned to create Ball Park Traffic through Public Art Fund's In the Public Realm Program. Now in its third year, the program provides emerging NY artists with the opportunity to create site-specific projects for public spaces throughout the City. Ball Park Traffic was made possible through the cooperation of David Protell of Chelsea Garden Center, Community Board #4 and the Department of Transportation. About Public Art Fund Support # # # Contact:
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