Here's a video that harks back to the days of Candid Camera...
Performance artists and installation artists have always been drawn to the activity and bustle of NYC. Not too long ago we had Christos and the orange gates that he spread through central park like construction cones on the BQE. Now we get this group performance piece that has the opposite effect: rather than pathways being highlighted in bright flappy orange, human barriers suddenly materialize in the paths of thousands of New Yorkers in one of the most heavily trafficked places in the city.
But although the stunt is revealed at the end of the clip and people clap, perhaps the best analogy is not the "gotcha" humor of Candid Camera so much as the clever hoaxes recorded in Herbert Asbury's All Around the Town. I am thinking especially of "The Sawing Off of Manhattan Island," a story about two clever con men who, according to Asbury and his source, manage to convince a large number of people to take seriously the notion of cutting Manhattan Island off, floating it out to sea, hooking it past Governor's Island, and floating it back to reconnect to the mainland. The con men convince people that this is the only way to redistribute the weight that had thrown lower Manhattan out of balance in the 1800s because of increased traffic and construction.
The story climaxes with thousands of ready-to-saw New Yorkers gathered in midtown waiting to take their orders from the two con men, who by this time have long since absconded, their hoax having been played out.
Of course, the hoax is directed as much at the gullible reader as it is at the contemporary New Yorkers who are left wandering around, no doubt seething and filled with thoughts of vengeance and humiliation. Who, after all, would believe that such mass gullibility could exist? Who in their right mind would follow such patently absurd logic? How could two con men mobilize such large numbers of civic minded people in a scheme so hairbrained?
Anyway, the piece of performance art in this clip is more a hoax than anything, especially since the target is not a single person like it is on CC, but rather a large number of people, who are confronted with the unprecedented notion that there can be beauty in stasis and who applaud in relief when movement resumes.
I think on some level any good art is hoax.
Performance artists and installation artists have always been drawn to the activity and bustle of NYC. Not too long ago we had Christos and the orange gates that he spread through central park like construction cones on the BQE. Now we get this group performance piece that has the opposite effect: rather than pathways being highlighted in bright flappy orange, human barriers suddenly materialize in the paths of thousands of New Yorkers in one of the most heavily trafficked places in the city.
But although the stunt is revealed at the end of the clip and people clap, perhaps the best analogy is not the "gotcha" humor of Candid Camera so much as the clever hoaxes recorded in Herbert Asbury's All Around the Town. I am thinking especially of "The Sawing Off of Manhattan Island," a story about two clever con men who, according to Asbury and his source, manage to convince a large number of people to take seriously the notion of cutting Manhattan Island off, floating it out to sea, hooking it past Governor's Island, and floating it back to reconnect to the mainland. The con men convince people that this is the only way to redistribute the weight that had thrown lower Manhattan out of balance in the 1800s because of increased traffic and construction.
The story climaxes with thousands of ready-to-saw New Yorkers gathered in midtown waiting to take their orders from the two con men, who by this time have long since absconded, their hoax having been played out.
Of course, the hoax is directed as much at the gullible reader as it is at the contemporary New Yorkers who are left wandering around, no doubt seething and filled with thoughts of vengeance and humiliation. Who, after all, would believe that such mass gullibility could exist? Who in their right mind would follow such patently absurd logic? How could two con men mobilize such large numbers of civic minded people in a scheme so hairbrained?
Anyway, the piece of performance art in this clip is more a hoax than anything, especially since the target is not a single person like it is on CC, but rather a large number of people, who are confronted with the unprecedented notion that there can be beauty in stasis and who applaud in relief when movement resumes.
I think on some level any good art is hoax.
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