Busted: public art at the high line

"Maybe because I'm Italian, I kept thinking about of the High Line as a big boulevard or like a street of the Roman forum, and the public sculptures that dot that landscape," says Cecilia Alemani, curator of Busted, which opens at the High Line next month. The project, which plays with the conventions of official public art works, includes Goshka Macuga's bust of Colin Powell delivering his infamous 2003 speech at the United nations holding that vial of anthrax. Read more...
Image: Goshka Macuga's bust of Colin Powell

Paola Pivi at the High Line

Paola Pivi's Untitled (Zebra) is the latest billboard project at New York's High Line. Pivi's work is the seventh installment on the 25-by-75-foot billboard, which has previously featured works by John Baldessari, Anne Collier, David Shrigley, Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, Elad Lassry and Thomas Bayle. Read more...
Image: Paola Pivi, Untitled (Zebras), High Line Billboard to 2 January 2013

Yayoi Kusama to stage a 120-foot version of Yellow Trees near the High Line

Yayoi Kusama is set to create a 120-foot version of her Yellow Trees in New York's meatpacking district. The artwork, which doubles as netting for a condo construction site, will be visible from New York's High Line, making it the latest in a number of artworks that galleries, developers and artists have staged in sight of the elevated park, hoping to cash in on the crowds that use it every day.
Image: A rendering of Yayoi Kusama's Yellow Trees, commissioned by DDG partners

The High Line effect

In an article published by the Huffington Post, Charles Birnbaum reports on the success of New York's High Line, the stretch of abandoned, elevated railroad on New York's West Side that has undergone a Phoenix-like resurrection to become one of the city's most popular destinations. He says the much-loved park has generated discussion about the so-called High Line effect and that several cities are looking at their own long-disused sections of track hoping they can literally replicate New York's success. Read more...
Images: The old High Line and the new High Line, New York

Maurizio Cattelan's billboard at the High Line

Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari have created a billboard for New York's High Line, the fourth in the series that began last December with John Baldessari's The First $100,000 I Ever Made. The pair made the image as part of Toilet Paper, an art magazine founded by them two years ago.
Image: Billboard by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo at the High Line

David Shrigley Billboard at the High Line

David Shrigley's billboard project How do you feel? at New York's High Line park is the third in a series beginning with John Baldessari's The First $100,000 I Ever Made. Shrigley's billboard runs concurrently with his retrospective Brain Activity at London's Hayward Gallery
Image: David Shrigley's How do you feel? billboard at the High Line, NY

The rise of New York's High Line park

Since opening in 2009, the New York's High Line has become one of America's favourite urban parks. But a recent survey by Travel & Leisure shows that its popularity as gone global, ranking it #10 on a list of the world's most popular landmarks. You can read our earlier posts on the High Line here.

Jeff Koons train for the High Line?

The Los Angeles Times reports LACMA's plans to build a massive Jeff Koons sculpture of a train outside the museum seem to be running out of steam. However, the Friends of the High Line have announced their desire to build the sculpture in the celebrated park on the elevated railway line built to carry carcasses into New York's meatpacking district. Read more...
Image: design rendering of Jeff Koons' Train for the High Line, NY

Plans announced for the third extension of New York's celebrated High Line Park

We have run several posts on New York's celebrated High Line Park, the old railway lines on stilts to New York's meatpacking district that was converted to a park and opened to the public in June 2009, followed by a second extension in June 2011 that doubled its length to a mile.

New York City's Department of Parks has unveiled plans for the last phase of the Park. Like the previous phases, the final extension will be designed by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Refro. Current proposed concepts include an amphitheatre-like seating, or an open gathering space bordered by beds of wild flowers, a new irregularly spiraling staircase and a children's play area where support beams will be stripped and coated with bright yellow safety rubber, perfect to climb around on.
Images: The Hight Line Park and concept for an amphitheatre at High Line's 10th Avenue spur

John Baldessari: the first $100,000 I ever made

A new billboard by John Baldessari features the $100,000 bill that didn't make it into circulation. Forty-two thousand of these bills were printed during the Great Depression and Baldessari has re-issued it as the US economy faces the spectre of another deep global downturn. Titled The First $100,000 I ever made, the piece will be on display at New York's High Line until 30 December.

Sitting on the High Line watching the actors go by

We've posted before on the High Line, the old railway line on stilts built to carry carcasses to New York's meatpacking district that has been converted into a city park. Last month it was used to stage SeeWatchLook, a collaboration by Brazilian director, Michel Melamed, and the Brooklyn-based theatre company Magic Futurebox. Visitors to the High Line Park formed a ready-made audience for snapshots of street life performed below by actors and dancers from Magic Futurebox, with occasional unscripted cameos by passers-by. Read more...

Images: actors portraying a Hasidic Jew and an Arab gathering condoms as part of SeeWatchLook at the High Line.

Up in the Park: New York's High Line

This link takes you to Up in the Park, an article in The New York Review of Books on the High Line, the old railway line on stilts built to carry carcasses to New York's meatpacking district that has been converted into a city park.

Image: New York's High Line park, past and present

From urban decay to post-industrial renovation

Eighty years after it was built to carry carcasses to New York's meatpacking district, the old railway line on stilts was converted into a city park, opening to the public in June 2009. The second phase of the conversion has just opened, doubling its length to one mile.

For a railway that came close to being torn down in 1999 when local businesses - backed by Mayor Rudi Giuliani - called it a blot on the landscape, it has become one of the most resounding examples of city rebirth. The neighbourhood has boomed since it opened and the flanks of the park have been dubbed "architects row" in recognition of the new buildings that have sprung up by internationally renowned architects such as Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Neil Denari.

In 2015 the area will receive another boost when the Whitney opens its new lower Manhattan museum at the southern end of the High Line.

Image: New York's High Line park, past and present