CULTURAL INFUSION

Innovative openings in New York City encourage visitors to rethink art and design.

- SHAMILEE VELLU

Choosing the starring artwork for Plinth, one of Manhattan’s most highly scrutinised venues is, literally, a monumental challenge. It is the first space on the High Line Spur, the final portion of the massively popular public park built on a freight rail line above Manhattan’s West Side — and one of the only New York City (NYC) sites dedicated to a rotating series of new and monumental contemporary art commissions. An estimated 8 million visit it annually, with an average of 40,000 per day.

“The artwork needs to signal this site as a new landmark for public art in New York City,” says Melanie Kress, High Line Art’s associate curator. “It has to have a certain grandiosity and be able to hold the space because there are so many viewpoints – on the High Line, from the street, and from the skyscrapers around it,” adds Kress, whose team had to address several concerns, including “challenging the histories of public art and traditional bronze equestrian statues of often white, male war heroes”, while also contending with the “cacophony and architecture of the city”.

The final choice for the inaugural High Line Plinth – after a lengthy process involving 50 proposals from artists from 26 countries – is Brick House by Simone Leigh. The towering bronze sculpture of a black woman with a domed, skirt-like torso was inspired by the domed dwellings of Chad and Cameroon in Africa, Batammaliba architecture from Benin and Togo, and Mammy’s Cupboard, a Mississippi restaurant.