Articolo tratto da Art In America Magazine by Wendy Vogel
Fancy an art excursion outside the sweaty confines of New York’s concrete grid, without the hassle of a car or train trip? Climb aboard a ferry to Governors Island. A former military base situated between Manhattan’s southern tip, Staten Island and the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, the 172-acre island has been open to the public for a decade. During the summer months, boats run from the Battery Maritime Building in the Financial District seven days a week, with weekend service from Brooklyn’s Pier 6 and via the East River Ferry.
This summer, “Visitors,” a group exhibition through Sept. 27 featuring outdoor and indoor works by nine contemporary artists, is scattered throughout the island. Tom Eccles, executive director of Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., and Ruba Katrib, curator of SculptureCenter in Long Island City, organized the show under the auspices of Art CommissionsGI, the public art wing of the Trust for Governors Island. “Visitors” joins various long-term artworks on the island that Eccles commissioned last year—four sculptures by Mark Handforth and a sound installation by Susan Philipsz referencing the island’s military history. Alongside these projects, in the Governors Island Arts Center, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council has organized “(Counter)Public: Art, Interventions and Performance in Lower Manhattan from 1978-1993,” an exhibition of photographs and ephemera about activist art, also on view through Sept. 27.