NEW YORK, N.Y.- From July 10 - August 15, 2004, the New Museum of Contemporary Art will present Counter Culture, an exhibition featuring site-specific interventions by six contemporary New York artists: Raul Vincent Enriquez, Flux Factory, Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga, Jean Shin, Julianne Swartz and Marion Wilson. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, explores the commerce and cultural diversity of the neighborhoods surrounding the Bowery-the future home of the New Museum-by pairing each of the six artists with a small business or organization in the area. Counter Culture is organized by Melanie Cohn.
A self-guided walking tour created by artist Raul Vincent Enriquez-including interviews and exchanges between shop owners, customers and the artists in the exhibition-will direct visitors to the five other projects in the exhibition. The walking tour will be available on www.newmuseum.org in MP3 or PDF format and will be distributed in CD format at participating businesses.
The collective known as Flux Factory presents Secret Spaces (2004), an installation in an area of Bowery Martial Arts (246 Bowery) not usually accessible to customers. A password, which will be included on the walking tour map, MP3 and at the store itself, will allow visitors to access a hidden, alternate realm. Each Flux Factory member will leave something to be discovered by visitors once inside the secret space, including various missions that visitors can read about and, if desired, perform. Missions range from the silly to the sublime, from clandestine deeds requiring the greatest stealth and cunning to truly trivial fun. Some missions relate to the historical topography or psycho-geography of the neighborhood, while on others, visitors are sent shopping.
In From Darkness to Daylight (2004), Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga constructs an installation at 1 Freeman Alley (off of Rivington Street between the Bowery and Chrystie Street), reflecting on the history and the future of the Bowery. The sculptural work is made of a series of large ducts, similar to those found in the alley itself, that have been interwoven together and inserted with monitors featuring computer animated characters that reflect different histories of the Bowery. Each animation is based upon a real resident of the Bowery and features recorded interviews by each with the artist. The separate animations combine to make distinct stories spanning the past 150 years and imagining the future of the Bowery neighborhood.
Jean Shin will place one specially designed, stainless steel counter sink filled with sudsy water outside the NoLiTa restaurant Public (210 Elizabeth Street) for her installation Wishing Well (2004). Pedestrians, shoppers and restaurant employees are encouraged to toss pennies into the sinks and make a wish. Inside the restaurant, visible to all patrons, will be a larger fountain. Shin’s sink counters, familiar to many of the vast number of immigrants working in the kitchens of New York restaurants, symbolize the immigrant pursuit of the "American Dream," a story common to the history of the Bowery.
Using lenses, magnets, hoses, and screens, Julianne Swartz creates sculptures that make circuits or journeys through space. Swartz’s Can You Hear Me (2004) consists of a pipe system stretching from the Bowery’s Sunshine Hotel to its ground-floor neighbor, Bari Restaurant Supply (both at 241 Bowery). This system, made from duct pipe and mirror and visible along the façade of the building, will create a visual and audible link between these two environments, as passers-by have the opportunity to peek inside the hotel and perhaps interact with its residents.
In creating This Store Too (2004), Marion Wilson was inspired by the philosophy of the neighborhood Bowery Mission - that the rehabilitation of the person must be physical, financial, and spiritual. In partnership with the Bowery Mission, a local homeless organization, Marion Wilson will create "merchandise" with the assistance of a person in a local residential program. Each person collaborating with Wilson will contribute an object or suggest an idea, which Wilson will then turn into a sculptural object. The object will be sold at a specially created pushcart in front of various local businesses around the Bowery, with all decisions for marketing and sales made in conjunction with the local resident and a percentage of sale profits donated to the homeless program. By displaying and selling memories and stories, Wilson provides opportunity for needy individuals to participate in commercial exchange.
