Roberta Smith reviews Olafur Eliasson's waterfall installation, officially titled "The New York City Waterfalls," (previously blogged here) for the New York Times Arts Review and gives it some TLC or tender, loving, care.
Smith states that despite its arguable status as "also one of the largest works of art, public or otherwise, of our modern era," "they are also actually relatively unobtrusive and brilliantly insidious." Indeed, on the first "official" opening, if you will, which was yesterday, I noticed that only a few people on my train noticed these artificial waterfalls. I had to point it out to my fellow strap hanger.
Sometimes Mr. Eliasson’s falls are almost miragelike, especially after dark, when unobtrusive lighting makes them shimmer white against the muffled cityscape. It is at night that you have the greatest chance of hearing them from a distance, otherwise the rush of water is drowned out by the city. But their quiet heightens their strangeness, day or night. It is as if they were in their own movie, a silent one. And in a way they are.
Even from the train's elevated point of view and distance, Eliasson's public art installation is amazing. I have yet to see it at night and am looking forward to doing so.
Perhaps the artist was inspired by this brilliant passage written by Bertrand Russell:
But in London or New York, where people are many and rabbits are few, some other means must be found to gratify primitive impulse. I think every big town should contain artificial water falls that people could descend in very fragile canoes, and they should contain bathing-pools full of mechanical sharks. Any person advocating a preventive war should be condemned to two hours a day with these ingenious monsters. More seriously, pains should be taken to provide constructive outlets for the love of excitement.