Springtime in Manhattan

During the second week of May, Bryant Park in mid-town displayed an installation/prformance piece, Walk the Walk, by Kate Gilmore, chosen and supported by the Public Art Fund. Unfortunately, I missed seeing it in person but my friend Frank Moscatelli did and provided me with this beautiful photograph.



The work consists of a cube the size of a cubicle-size office, painted yellow, on the top of which six women in fluttering yellow dresses walk randomly but intently. The vivid yellow recalls the first spring blossoms -- forsythia, crocus, and daffodil, and the stereometric box of such height as to force us to look up at the women echoes the office buildings around the park, while the lush foliage of the plane trees in contrast harmonize with the moving human bodies.

Simple as it is in form, the work is rich in its layered images, all pertinent to Manhattanites who daily negotiate in cramped spaces at home and at work, and wade between crowding bodies in their commutes no less than in stores and theaters and sidewalks, especially the emblematic Times Square, where gawking tourists intermingle uncomfortably with the locals who stride on in a hurry, whether purposefully or aimlessly. The box allows people to step in and experience the metropolitan claustrophobia with the clicking of heels overhead magnified to loud clangs.

The most intriguing reference is Giacometti's City Square, now in MoMA, where the spindly figures crisscross without exchanging glances in their anonymous urban existence. But spring comes regardless, always worthy of celebration.