Testing Public Art on the Public

The classical steps of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall have looked pretty much the same since construction finished on the building in 1849. But with designer Mark Reigelman’s teal green “Stair Squares” — hollow, metal, L-shaped platforms, each of which are two steps deep — an experiment in functional public art is brightening the mood.“Stair Squares are supposed to act as tables between two people,” Mr. Reigelman, a recent graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, said. The object is “to create a more formal and comfortable engagement between people while at the same time creating a height where you could set your lunch on comfortably, set a newspaper on and read it, or set a sketchbook on and be sketching.”After a thought, he added, “It’s basically just an elevated platform.”To Mr. Reigelman, public art should be both conceptually and functionally sound, but above all it should be temporary. “I don’t like the idea of permanence in public art. I think it’s almost arrogant,” he said.That’s part of the reason he appreciated Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates” in Central Park. (They’ve also given him financial support in the past.) “Public spaces are unpredictable,” Mr. Reigelman said. “I can guarantee you, a lot of people are going to be like, ‘What is this installation?’ and be completely appalled by it. And there’s going to be those few who understand it and use it. That’s why when you work in public spaces it needs to be temporary, so you can test something, bring it back, readjust it, and then make another attempt.”Mr. Reigelman’s installation is scheduled to run until August 26. A $15,000 Windgate Fellowship from the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Hendersonville, N.C., funded the installation’s design and construction. The center’s director, Dian Magie, praised Mr. Reigelman’s vision and tenacity in a recent statement.Although Mr. Reigelman speaks like a man with a confident vision, he sometimes borders on grandiloquence. The press release announcing the Stair Square project bore the title, “One Small Step for Man, One Large Step for Art and Design.” When interviewed, he said of his work: “My goal is to be a philosopher of the everyday object. I want to question interiors, question public spaces, question interaction, question contemporary culture, question war. I want to question these things that we engage with every day.”Those are big questions for a designer in his early 20s who is starting to establish himself on the New York scene, but Mr. Reigelman backs up his sweeping statements with a healthy dose of perspective. “You don’t have to understand art and design. I go to galleries all the time, and I leave most of the time completely baffled by what the artists are talking about,” he said.“I’m designing a pillow now,” he later said of another project. “It’s a pillow. That’s all it is, and I’ve been designing and building prototypes for four months.”He paused and thought for a moment. Then, he added, “I’ve been told that I’m slightly obsessive compulsive.”Indeed, Mr. Reigelman is nothing if not meticulous. He notices virtually everything about a space, because he’s passionate about them. He said, “Public spaces are meaningful. They’re jawdropping.”But someone so mindful of what’s happening in a given area is bound to be dissatisfied by some of the spaces in New York. The subway is one part of the city he feels could use his immediate aesthetic attention. “Subway platforms are a horrible example of how a space can be designed,” he said, citing “the way the seats are designed, the way they’re integrated into the space, [and] the tile usage.”“Atmosphere can influence a person’s mood so much,” he said, offering a way of lifting the city’s spirits: “Maybe New Yorkers would be less cranky if there was a better designed subway platform?”To submit an event for consideration for the Calendar, please wire the particulars to calendar@nysun.com, placing the date of the event in the subject line.

Testing Public Art on the Public

Testing Public Art on the Public

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