Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
It was not just another opening Tuesday at the Museum of Modern Art.
Doug Aitken’s video project “sleepwalkers,” to be shown on the walls of the museum at night through February 12, is a step toward redefining the relationship between museums and their communities. It also shows that MoMA is surging with creativity after a long and expensive expansion.
“Doug is inverting the museum,” the director of the museum, Glenn Lowry, said.
The museum let him do it. “With the Aitken project, MoMA shows its innovative spirit, and that is what keeps the museum going,” the city’s planning commissioner, Amanda Burden, said.
The artist spoke of his warm reception. “MoMA has been incredibly supportive and generous,” Mr. Aitken said. “I’ve been impressed the entire way. For the museum to be willing to open up walls, spaces, and alleys is a statement.”
The evening was certainly a display of the museum’s hospitality. More than 1,000 people gathered at 5 p.m. for the project unveiling outside in the Sculpture Garden. At 7, about 150 people from the museum and Creative Time, the project’s co-presenter, gathered for cocktails and dinner. At 10, artists and their cohorts arrived by the hundreds for another party, featuring a performance by one of the actors in the work, Seu Jorge, who traveled from Brazil.
“Money and collectors matter, but artists are a museum’s greatest resource, and this is a great example of a museum embracing the artists’ community, ” art dealer Jeffrey Deitch said at the late party. New York artists Matthew Barney, Will Cotton, Todd Eberle, and Sean Mellyn were standing nearby.
Although the artist grew up in and lives in Southern California, the piece is unequivocally New York, featuring the actions of a bicycle messenger, a businessman, an office worker, an electrician, and a postal worker. The work was filmed in all five boroughs this summer, at locations including the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in Brooklyn, the Lettera Sign Company in the Bronx, the MetLife Building in Manhattan, and the Staten Island Ice Skating Pavilion. “The characters synthesize the experience of New York,” Mr. Aitken said.
“This project could only happen in New York. You need to have a pedestrian-based city for a piece like this,” the president and artistic director of Creative Time, Anne Pasternak, said.
The night was a milestone for Creative Time, which this year marks its 33rd anniversary. “I feel overwhelmed, elated,” Ms. Pasternak said. “This piece is quiet and poetic. My sense is people are stopping and bothering to enjoy it.”
“Sleepwalkers” is an auspicious beginning as the first major art event in the new year.
