Richard Nonas

USE is the point here; how this place is used. River, housing project, skyline, black neighborhood, Hell Gate currents, industrial area, wasteland: sculpture park — the site, the situation, the sculpture. (All specific, all detailed, all complicated and confusing.) Two years ago this was a trash dump unused; now it’s a sculpture park — still a dump — but USED.

Used for work, used for play, used for art. USE IS THE POINT; use by neighbors, use by artists, use by visitors, and use by the sculpture itself. For strong sculpture USES its site, too; strong sculpture pushes its space, pulls it, stretches it up or out, changes it: uses it.

Strong sculpture MAKES the place it ends up in; it does not just visit it. It USES it in order to make it.

Strong sculpture CHANGES SPACE TO PLACE, and changes its USE for us.

Catalogue

View ‘Torn’ in the exhibition catalogue ‘Fact of the Matter‘ online HERE>>>  A print version is not available.