Williamsburg Bridge Show

Jody Culkin’s Street Lamps, Rebecca Howland’s Real Estate Octopus and Manhattan as a Dead Horse, Ann Messner’s (b.1952, New York City, NY) Incubator, Scott Pfaffman’s Frankie and Johnny, and Christy Rupp’s (b.1949, Rochester, NY) Pan Urbanics Garbagi N.S. Rupp are stationed around the walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge.

For Real Estate Octopus and Manhattan as a Dead Horse, sculptor Rebecca Howland has used metal to create the figure of a monstrous octopus engulfing the World Trade Center buildings for the walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge. Gregory Sholette, in his essay “Unnatural Speculations: Nature as an icon of urban resistance on NYC’s Lower East Side 1979-1984,” argues that the octopus is an emblem of big business and the sculpture “cast the real estate wars in terms of natural predation and defense.”

Jody Culkin, Rebecca Howland, Ann Messner, Christy Rupp, Scott Pfaffman