It’s supposed to keep raining through Friday, when artist Pierre Huyghe is planning to shoot an element of a new video art work in Central Park’s Wollman Rink. Huyghe is transforming the rink into a black ice floe, home for an albino penguin, apparently, and also to a 42-piece orchestra.
The public is invited to come and participate as audience/extras during three run-throughs of the piece. Even as he held out the possibility of some kind of surprise ending, Huyghe tried to manage expectations about the performance/shoot. He told Randy Kennedy of the NYT, “‘There will be no crazy dancing girls,’ he stressed. ‘In fact, there will be almost nothing – for all 20 minutes.'”
Listen, I know the guy schlepped to Antarctica for a month searching for some damn albino penguin; thanks. But if we’re gonna sit in the rain for two hours watching “almost nothing,” we better damn well see some penguins. And I’ll incite the crowd to storm the zoo if I have to.
An Antarctica Sighting in Central Park [nyt]
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the making of, by greg allen