HEARD•NY: Nick Cave To Unleash 30 Multi Coloured Horses At New York’s Grand Central Terminal
Words by Demetrios Gkiouzelis
Location
New York, United States
HEARD•NY: Nick Cave To Unleash 30 Multi Coloured Horses At New York’s Grand Central Terminal
Words by Demetrios Gkiouzelis
New York, United States
New York, United States
Location
It’s a typical day in busy New York City as thousands of people pass through Grand Central Terminal as they navigate their way through the bustling city. Amidst the endless sea of commuters and the sound of departure announcements echoing off the Main Concourse walls, a herd of fantastical creatures is unleashed, to parade through the masses. The odd sight appears to be part of a colourful hallucination, an exuberant daydream that interrupts every sense of everyday normality and schedule. Flabbergasted, one is left to wonder. There must be only one reason for this; it has to be another Creative Time project.
Photograph by Travis Magee, Courtesy Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit.
Founded back in 1974, Creative Time is a New York-based non-profit that has commissioned and presented the most innovative art in the public realm throughout New York City, across the United States and around the world. Considering public spaces as providing a great opportunity for creative and free expression, they work with artists who ignite the imagination and explore ideas that shape society, transcending geographic, racial and socioeconomic barriers. For their third collaboration with MTA Arts for Transit - a Metropolitan Transportation Authority initiative which commissions public artwork projects throughout the subway and commuter rail stations -, Creative Time joined forces with famed American visual artist Nick Cave to transform Grand Central Terminal into a magical place bursting with colours and sounds.
Photograph by Travis Magee, Courtesy Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit.
With his debut public art project in New York City, artistNick Cave will transform Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall into a pasture for a grazing herd of 30 fantastical life-size horses. Accompanied by live music, sixty dance students from The AILEY School will don Cave’s celebrated ‘Soundsuits’ and perform specially choreographed ‘crossings’ at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. every day. Drawing on his training as both a visual artist and dancer, Nick Cave worked closely with Chicago-based choreographer William Gill to design the dancers’ movements, incorporating both choreographed and improvised movement. The horses will perform as a ‘herd’ in the Vanderbilt Hall or in smaller groups within the Main Concourse and throughout Grand Central Terminal. When they are not fulfilling their role as performance instruments, the ‘Soundsuits’ will be on display in the Vanderbilt Hall, offering visitors the chance to inspect the meticulously crafted horses up close.
Photograph by Travis Magee, Courtesy Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit.
''We used to be dreamers, thinking ‘What would l like to be?’ But under the stresses of contemporary life, we seem to have lost that capacity. With works like HEARD•NY, I try to create a moment that brings us back to dreaming and fantasy, to a state of mind where we can think about alternative ways of being.'' - Nick Cave
Photograph by Travis Magee, Courtesy Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit.
Photograph by Travis Magee, Courtesy Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit.
Photograph by Travis Magee, Courtesy Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit.