Source: More Art
The world-renowned Polish artist reignites America's dialogue on war with a new outdoor installation in New York's Union Square Park, commemorating veteran's day and giving a voice to the veterans of today and tomorrow
The public art piece, which gives a voice to soldiers who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam to talk about their experience of war as a projection on the bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, erected in 1870. Beginning at dusk on the evening of the 8th of November, the installation will fill one of New York's busiest squares with the emotions and memories of America's servicemen.
"As our troops withdraw from Afghanistan, this commemorative statue, commissioned just a few years after the Civil War, again becomes a place for dialogue about war", says Micaela Martegani, founding director of More Art. In preparation for the project, the artist interviewed about 30 war veterans and their family members over several months. Fourteen of these conversations were recorded and all the individual personal points of view shared in each respondent's own words, voice and gestures. These words and gestures are at the heart of the project, shared with the public via a projection onto the statue of Lincoln.
The project not only gives a voice to those who often remain unheard, but also gives the public an opportunity to see the men and women who have gone into battle for the nation and to hear what they feel about what they experienced. The connection with Lincoln, according to Wodiczko, is a parallel between the war veterans and their traumas in the past, as far back as the Civil War, and Lincoln's own witnessing of the war, and the viewpoint of today's war veterans. As Martegani says, the work is meant to "reinvigorate interest and give new meaning to this historical civic monument, causing New Yorkers to stop and reflect on our history and its consequences.
Wodiczko has gained renown for his public projections, a form of art which he pioneered in order to make the invisible members of society become visible anew. He has addressed a number of subjects, including homelessness, immigration and domestic abuse through more than 80 large-scale installations around the world. He has created works focused on the war veteran experience in the past, with his 2009 War Veteran Vehicle traveling across various cities in Europe, sounding and projecting the stories of Iraq war veterans.
Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection is the artist's second project in the Union Square Area. In 1986 he developed Homeless Projection: A Proposal for Union Square, which took objects typically associated with homelessness and projected them onto the four monumental sculptures in Union Square, addressing the effects of real estate development on an area of the city that had been once derelict. Its role in the War Veteran project is also quite apt as the square has been the site of many activist gatherings through the past century and a half - ever since the time of the Civil War. Most recently, it the site of peaceful protests against the Iraq war and a commemoration site for the victims of the 9/11 attacks.
The piece has been commissioned by Galerie Lelong and More Art, an organisation devoted to bringing new and innovative works of art into public spaces in New York City. It has received support from a number of public and private institutions, including the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.
Krzysztof Wodiczko (born 1943 in Warsaw) has received several awards, including the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, College Art Association’s Award for Distinguished Body of Work, the Hiroshima Art Prize, and an award from the International Art Critics Association (AICA-USA). He currently lives and works in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is currently the Professor in Residence of Art, Design and the Public Domain at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He also works with the Interrogative Design Group, which aims to combine art and technology with emerging social issues relevant to society as a whole.
For more on the work, see: www.moreart.org
For more information on Krzysztof Wodiczko, see: www.galerielelong.com
Editor: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: More Art