The Jumper of the Empire State Building
1 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Friday, April 16, 2010 at 4/16/2010 10:39:00 PM.
Since March 26th, British sculptor Anthony Gormley put up a group of his trademark sculptures in New York as part of the "Event Horizon" art project. But not just any random plot, but in plain visibility on the edges of buildings and even on one of the platforms of the Empire State Building, to the greatest annoyance of the police department of New York, swarmed with phonecalls by concerned people who think the sculpture is a real person about to commit suicide.
The sculpture at the Empire State is the one with the most visibility and regularly gets people screaming on the streetcorner while they call up the police. The artwork came even more under critical fire since a Yale student jumped to his death from said Empire State platform on March 30th. Mayor Bloomberg meanwhile supports the art project, aimed to boost tourism in the city.
For his next project, Gormley should put sniper sculptures on the building roofs as well. I'm sure they would make a good counterpart to the jumpers.
Labels: Art, New York, New York street stuff
Not a way I'd choose to go. Too many nightmares of falling off roofs and buildings.