— unpredictable thoughts

New York in the sum­mer is a slug­gish time with the heat and humid­ity dri­ving any­one who lives in the city to shore, moun­tain retreats, or europe. How­ever, for those that can­not escape there is a won­der­ful new pub­lic art project to cool your mind if not your body.

While mean­der­ing through one of the many copies of the Times piled on our cof­fee table at Stel­larvi­sions I came across an arti­cle about the new really BIG pub­lic art project by Ola­fur Elias­son. This project involves lots of water and that is a cool thing. This is a project so com­pelling it will draw many to see it dur­ing their sul­try vacations.

I haven’t seen any of this project in per­son yet but I have been vis­it­ing the many places on the web that will help you find out more about Olafu Elias­son and the Pub­lic Art Fund who made this instal­la­tion hap­pen. You can see this work by train, boat, bicy­cle, or foot and the nycwaterfalls.org web­site will give you the scoop.

This is a huge project in all ways. There are four water­falls they are between 90 and 120 feet tall, water will fall between 7 and 10 pm. The water will be lighted in the evening. The engi­neer­ing is an incred­i­ble feat; pulling water up from the river to let it rain down to its source again. It cost 15 mil­lion bucks and the Pub­lic Art Fund tapped every­one includ­ing the Major to make it happen.

I’m think­ing the Cir­cle Line tour is a good idea. No lug­ging around my cam­era, pic­nic bas­ket and all. Seems like you would have to expe­ri­ence it so many ways and times of day. This could keep us all busy until Octo­ber when the instal­la­tion closes.

With­out even vis­it­ing the work it has made me think of the water that sur­rounds Man­hat­tan in a dif­fer­ent way. It brings the water to life again. No longer just a sur­face upon which boats pass and com­merce takes place. It is a sur­face that can be bro­ken. It reminds us of the nature of water and water in nature. Its not a leap to move into the thoughts of our expe­ri­ences with gen­tle sprays and pow­er­ful cascades.

Thanks to Ola­fur Elias­son for cre­at­ing this inter­nal and exter­nal conversation.

Here’s a look at some of the info avail­able on the web. Even if you can’t make the trip to NYC. You can expe­ri­ence the work in another way.

Tags: art, sculp­ture, instal­la­tion, nyc, new york, pub­lic art, big art, Ola­fur Eliasson