One thing I saw in New York this past weekend was a public-space sculpture called Event Horizon by a British artist called Antony Gormley. Now I guess I normally don’t go in for this kind of thing, and one look at the wikipedia entry on Gormley convinces me that he’s the most banal and ridiculous type of post-modern artist whose work fails to be either beautiful or shocking or even very interesting. But I have to say that Event Horizon, which consists “31 life size male bodies ... which have been placed on top of prominent buildings” caught my fancy. The human figures on the rooftops gave a sense of scale to the massive city buildings. Plus they made standing in Madison Square Park like being inside a Where’s Waldo book -or in an episode of Dr. Who.
On a somewhat related note, here is a link to a BBC video. It is a nice explanation of the (central) importance of beauty in art by philosopher Roger Scrution. Link courtesy of Larry Macdougal.
Finally, Marion Vitus has posted some pictures from the weekend on her flickr.
