SPQ Faculty Greg Sholette Showing at the Queens Museum

Greg Sholette: Fifteen Islands for Robert Moses

On view through May 20, 2012 at the Queens Museum of Art

The other Saadiyat Island as imagined by Hana Shams Ahmed, One of fifteen islands fabricated by Greg Sholette based on ideas proposed by invited collaborators, Mixed media (paper, sand, plastic, wire, resin), 2012
The other Saadiyat Island as imagined by Hana Shams Ahmed, One of fifteen islands fabricated by Greg Sholette based on ideas proposed by invited collaborators, Mixed media (paper, sand, plastic, wire, resin), 2012

 

Fifteen Islands for Robert Moses is a site-specific art infiltration into the Panorama of the City of New York, which was built for the 1964 World’s Fair by urban planner Robert Moses and is now a centerpiece of the Queens Museum of Art. Artist and theorist Greg Sholette made and placed new islands about the Panorama’s waterways, where they exist as silent, post-9/11 observers of the City’s past, present, and future. Modeled in the same style as the Panorama, each island represents Sholette’s interpretation of a question he posed to a group of other artists and art theorists: “If you could add an island to New York City, what would that new landmass be like?” Touching on issues from environmental and economic justice to the overflowing archives of human memory and immigrant’s rights, the new fantasy islands interrupt the familiar geography of the Panorama, subtly haunting a favorite destination for students, tourists, and urban planners. Surrounding the Panorama is a series of posters about the project’s participating collaborators: Hana Shams AhmedBrett BloomLarry BogadMarc Fischer,Aaron Gach/Center for Tactical MagicLibertad GuerraDara GreenwaldMarisa JahnKarl Lorac/Themm!Ann Messner,Ted PurvesRasha SaltiDread Scott and Jenny Polak,Jeffrey Skollerand Nato Thompson. Special thanks go to Matthew F. Greco for graphic assistance.

Fifteen Islands for Robert Moses is supported in part by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and The Greenwall Foundation. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.