Olafur Eliasson's NYC Waterfalls...

haven't seen em yet but I liked some of his stuff at MOMA (although there was less of it than I thought, about 13 pieces ... there's more at PS1 but I didn't make it up there due to 7 train weekend b.s.)

were the Gates really a dud? i thought they were cool, though not as cool as torii gates which inpired them. and it got a lot of people out walking in the park in february.

haven't seen the waterfalls in person yet, i think eliasson usually does cool stuff though. would like to go on the boat tour to see them.

havent seen them in person yet but the pictures look pretty unimpressive = scaffolding w/a little water running off it

the gates didnt cause any strong emotions to bubble from deep within but at least there were a lot of them

yeah the gates were kinda fun. gave the park a little bit of a winter carnival vibe. would've been nicer if there was more snow. without seeing the waterfalls in person yet, my impression is that eliasson has a problem of scale. the bridges and river are so big that you'd need something a lot more massive than what he's done to make any real impression.

Yeah, when I first saw artistic mockups, they looked bigger, and the water looked opaque (so the scaffolding wasn't visible). Also, unless you're on the water taxi, you see them from a distance, and like you say, the entire skyline / waterfront is of such a scale that only something that dwarfs buildings and bridges might produce the wow factor that this kind of ebnvironmental art aims for.

But I don't want to be wholly negative, I like it OK. And the Gates were OK. I just wonder about these huge public art projects; their complicity in NYC tourism, blurring the lines between public space and branding...etc. But that's another discussion.

the first view from afar of the bridge waterfall made more of an impression than anticipated. they're pretty cool.

i think i'd probably rather see them from afar

DUD

the first view from afar of the bridge waterfall made more of an impression than anticipated

are you kidding? I've only seen it from the Q train but it looks like a burst pipe pouring off some scaffolding

my impression is that eliasson has a problem of scale. the bridges and river are so big that you'd need something a lot more massive than what he's done to make any real impression

basically this ^^^^

I still liked the gallery stuff though. made it over to PS1 on the final weekend.

the $16mil part is o_O

Saw the bridge one from the seaport, it was cool but not...I mean, I like them, but for sixteen million dollars? What??

I bet it looks better from the seaport than up on the train. it seems like the only way it would like right is straight on, from water level.

I kinda lolled at his quote in the New Yorker's Talk of the Town piece: Why four waterfalls?

(paraphrasing here) "Well, one would be a monument. Two is binary; three would be a triptych. Four is just .... many."

would like right

er, look right

What percentage of New Yorkers have never seen a waterfall before?

are you kidding?

no. you should understand my expectations weren't high, though.

the bridges and river are so big that you'd need something a lot more massive than what he's done to make any real impression

scale is not the point.

The ones I've seen, from bridges, look like industrial run-off. Incredibly underwhelming. The scaffolding is ugly and detracts from the wee little trickle of water to the point that it just looks laughable.

Do you guys like waterfalls? Of course they look like industrial run-off, it's the East River.

http://www.wapacasting.com/wallpapers/waterfall_1280_3cboflxu2.jpg
http://www.lakehallett.com/images/stormwater.jpg

I think I would have to be able to stand under them, not "under", but, you know, close enough that the visual made sense. The lack of perspective is hurting the effect, for me.

when i first heard about this, i thought each waterfall was gonna be the width of the east river, like mini dams or something. that would have been cool

I like waterfalls

maybe it is a problem of expectations because I think the gap between the artist renderings and real life execution is wide

I have been in several waterfalls! They are very fun and I've always wanted to go somewhere wild enough that one had to take one's showers in a waterfall but no dice in my life yet.

fwiw I thought the "Reverse Waterfall" piece at PS1 was kinda lame too. his works with mirrors and playing with visual perception were great though. monochrome yellow neon room at MOMA was *_*

my first view was from down by the Battery Maritime building, and I couldn't tell which side of the river the one by the Manhattan bridge was on

I'll admit they look kinda cool at night

the water is illuminated and the "infrastructure" disappears