[Photos by Alan Miles]
· Jesica Stockholder, Flooded Chambers Maid [madisonsquarepark.org]
· CurbedWire: Madison Square's Blue Period, Car Toast-a-Thon [Curbed]
We've been following the curious contraption being assembled in Madison Square Park since its infancy, later dropping by to see the mysterious installation get a touch of color. Is it the latest wacky public art event to grace the park and city? Yes it is! The Madison Square Park Conservancy website has finally been updated with information on this new exhibit, Flooded Chambers Maid by multimedia artist Jessica Stockholder. Visually stimulated yet? Then you'll want to know more!
Inspired by the interplay of natural and man-made patterns in the design of Madison Square Park and born of an experiential approach to art making, Flooded Chambers Maid is anchored by a 1300 sq. ft. arrow-shaped platform sprawling across the northern end of the park’s Oval Lawn. The platform—a wildly colorful and intricately-patterned combination of custom cut and colored industrial steel and molded fiberglass grating—emerges from a shock of colored rubber mulch to spread itself across the lawn, enveloping a tree and stretching to reach the pathway surrounding the Oval Lawn. The platform’s dynamic pop colors, so characteristic of Stockholder’s work, spill from the edge of the platform and Oval Lawn across the bordering pathway, leading to an equally colorful staircase and viewing platform installed on one of the smaller adjacent lawns. From this elevated perspective, visitors are invited to view the installation’s garden: swaths of bright flowers and boldly colored plastic bins and buckets that sweep across the small adjoining lawn in an energetic and ever-changing expanse.Visitors can also view the swarms of people awkwardly twisting around to check if blue paint rubbed off on their rear ends, which, to us, is the real appeal here.
· Jesica Stockholder, Flooded Chambers Maid [madisonsquarepark.org]
· CurbedWire: Madison Square's Blue Period, Car Toast-a-Thon [Curbed]