High Art: Public Art on the High Line

(Paperback)

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High Art: Public Art on the High Line surveys the first five years of art on the High Line, the unique elevated park in New York City created
through the repurposing of an abandoned railway line. Since its inception in 2009the same year the High Line was opened to the public the five million visitors a year have been witness to more than eighty public art projects animating the grounds of this unique "park in the sky," including sculpture, installation, billboards, video, performance, and sound works. Engaging a range of artists from established figures such as John Baldessari, Maurizio Cattelan, Gilbert and George, and Trisha Brown to critically acclaimed emerging artists like Carol Bove, Sarah Sze, and El Anatsui, the program is steadily broadening the audience for contemporary art while pushing the boundaries of how we understand public art functions in the cultural landscape.

This beautifully illustrated volume will feature the High Line's diverse projects thematically, across the four platforms that comprise the program, which include: High Line Commissions (artwork made specifically for the High Line); High Line Billboard; High Line Channel (the video program); and High Line Performance. Rounding out the color images, in addition to short texts on the various art projects, the book will feature an introduction by curator Cecilia Alemani, an essay on the High Line's effect on Chelsea, the neighborhood cultural hub where it is located.

Reviews

"[High Art] details the history of art on the High Line, which continues to thrillingly achieve [High Line Curator and Director] Alemani's goals, from group shows and film screenings to live performances and participatory events . . . The large-size paperback also includes a round-table discussion between Alemani and several other curators of public art that takes a fascinating view of how the discipline is changing and how the art is commissioned and perceived."
-twi-ny.com

Author Bio

Cecilia Alemani is an independent curator, writer, and Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Curator and Director of High Line Art Program. From 2009 to 2010, she served as Curatorial Director of X Initiative, New York, a year-long experimental non-profit space where she curated numerous exhibitions including solo shows by Keren Cytter, Luke Fowler, Hans Haacke, and Christian Holstad. At X Initiative she conceived and organized more than 50 events including performances, panel discussions, symposia, lectures, concerts and screenings. In June, 2009, Cecilia co-founded No Soul For Sale, a festival of independent spaces, non-profit organizations, and artists collectives which took place at X Initiative, and at Tate Modern - Turbine Hall in London in May, 2010 as part of the museum's tenth anniversary celebration. She has organized numerous exhibitions including The Comfort of Strangers (MoMA/PS1, New York, 2010); boundLES (at numerous venues in the Lower East Side, New York); ONLYCONNECT (Bloomberg Headquarters with Art in General, New York, 2008); and Things Fall Apart All Over Again (Artists Space, New York, 2005). Alemani holds a BA degree in Philosophy from the University of Milan (2001) and an MA in Curatorial Studies (2005) from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.