#highlinecommission

The sculpture played with the tradition of fountains in classical gardens, where mythological divinities, imaginary animals, and other strange creatures are turned into whimsical springs. Gander extended this practice by inserting a traditional figure into a contemporary garden, and inviting adventurous visitors to drink from her mouth.

Gander also exhibited two additional works. Titled Zooming out, a bronze cast of the artist’s wallet and phone placed on the corner of the Seating Steps, as if it were abandoned by the artist. Gander also presented Toodaloo, a sound piece which consisted of a live feed from his home garden in Suffolk, England.

All three of Gander’s projects were on view as part of the group exhibition Panorama, on view from April 2015 to early March 2016.

New York-based artist Allyson Vieira presented Construction (Rampart), a bronze cast of a paper cup pyramid. As it aged over the course of the year-long exhibition, the sculpture collected plant debris and water, transforming into an urban relic and evoking the past trajectory of the High Line itself.

Allyson Vieira’s Construction (Rampart) was on view from April 2012 to April 2013 on the High Line at West 23rd Street.

The works grew out of a dialogue with Atzompa potters in Oaxaca, Mexico about their archaeological heritage and how it is expressed, contaminated, or dissolved in the present. Each column tells a story inspired by fictional tales composed around everyday objects and archaeological artifacts.

Mariana Castillo Deball, Who would measure the space, who would tell me the moment?, part of the group exhibition Panorama, is on view at West 14th Street through March 2016.

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For his High Line Commission titled Blocks, Johnson built one of his minimalist three-dimensional steel black grids, which houses a series of busts painted to resemble shea butter (a material commonly used by the artist), and acts as a living greenhouse as plants on the High Line intertwine with the sculpture. Playing with forms taken from the Minimalist tradition – Sol LeWitt’s white open cubes come to mind – Johnson turns them into a reflection on blackness by breaking the rational structure open and embedding loaded objects within it.

Installed in April 2015 in an oblong island of plants growing between pathways on the High Line, the sculpture has changed over the course of its installation, the empty rectilinear vessel becoming a horticultural container as the seasons pass. 

Johnson’s work reflects his ongoing interest in a line from a book by artist Lawrence Weiner called “Something to Put Something On,” in which the concept “table” is explained as “something to put something on.” This semiotic explication resonates with Johnson, who pushes its implications toward thinking about the ways in which lives, cultures, and historical arcs are a mere practice of putting some things on top other things that are imagined to be taken as given, such as the exemplary case of the table.

Rashid Johnson’s Blocks is on view through March 2016 on the High Line at Little West 12th Street.

Installing the work in April 2015.

Spring 2015

Summer 2015

Fall 2015

Winter 2016