The 125,000 commuters who pass through Grand Central Terminal every day may notice something different underfoot next week. By Thursday 27,000 square feet of rose-patterned carpet in shades of bubble-gum pink, fuchsia, baby blue, lime green and silvery gray will have been laid down on the floor of the Beaux-Arts Vanderbilt Hall. It’s the latest creation of Rudolf Stingel, the Italian-born Conceptual artist. The project, called “Plan B” (after an idea known as “Plan A” didn’t work out), is Mr. Stingel’s first public work in the United States. “It’s about taking something we’re all used to seeing and putting it in a different context, isolating it,” Mr. Stingel said. “It has no purpose, but isn’t that what art is about? It’s a huge painting you can’t sell.”
The carpet Mr. Stingel selected is “a vast anonymous design, the sort of thing you’d find in a casino or hotel,” said Yvonne Force Villareal, a founder of the nonprofit Art Production Fund, which commissioned “Plan B” along with Creative Time, another nonprofit organization known for bringing public art to city landmarks, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Arts for Transit program. But once its installed, Ms. Villareal said, it will look like a giant work of abstract art. The project was more than a year in the making during which Ms. Villareal raised about $130,000 from foundations and private sponsors.
Thought One: Who is paying for this nonsense?
Thought Two: How long (in minutes) before someone does something truly disgusting on that carpet?
Thought Last: I know that art doesn’t need a rationale, but public art ought to. I’d love to hear the rationale behind this one.
1 A Non-Profit Art Production Fund commissions the work.
2 It’s nice to know you have such a high opinion of New Yorkers and there behavior in a pubic place like Grand Central Terminal. (of course those people from Connecticut can’t be trusted.
3 Why the double standard on public/non-public art?
If it is just a big piece of industrial carpet, like you find in a casino, then it is, what is called, found art. Somewhere, some group of people worked on this carpet. They chose colors, and patterns. A pattern that repeats itself probably over and over. But in a casino the carpet gets covered with gaming tables and slot machines. Now you have a chance to think about the work that went into the carpet.