you
Posted on | November 29, 2007 |
“urs fischer has reduced gavin brown’s enterprise to a hole in the ground, and it is one of the most splendid things to have happened in a new york gallery in a while. experientially rich, buzzing with energy and entropy, crammed with chaos and contradiction, and topped off with the saga of subversion that is central both to the history of the empty-gallery-as-a-work-of-art but also to the gavin brown experience itself, this work is brimming with meaning and mojo. It was also a herculean project.
a 38-foot-by-30-foot crater, eight feet deep, extends almost to the walls of the gallery, surrounded by a fourteen-inch ledge of concrete floor. A sign at the door cautions, THE INSTALLATION IS PHYSICALLY DANGEROUS AND INHERENTLY INVOLVES THE RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH; intrepid viewers can, all the same, inch their way around the hole. fischer’s pit is titled “you”, and it took ten days to build, costing around $250,000 of brown’s money (heaven only knows what his landlord thought of it.). the gallery’s ground-level garage doors facilitated the jackhammering and removal of the concrete floor and the use of a backhoe to excavate tons of dirt and debris, after which a crew closed off the space with immaculate white walls.
there’s also a cramped antechamber, superfluous but well executed: a smaller reproduction of the main gallery, down to the air ducts and electrical outlets, it’s sort of a mini-me you. ducking through its pint-size entrance is like going though a door in alice’s adventures in wonderland. you have to crouch as you enter and watch where you step in preparation for the more precarious and thrilling main event beyond.”
(from nymag.com)
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