New York Art@Site www.artatsite.com Charles Long Pet Sounds
Artist:

Charles Long

Title:

Pet Sounds

Year:
2012
Adress:
Madison Square (temporary)
Website:
A gentle warm world
This artwork is made of ugly forms. They have soft colors and you touch them, you hear soft music. The artwork is on a pleasant place; near a bench in a park.
Pet Sounds by Charles Long invokes a soft world, where is listened and responded on a genle way.
A world where you wake up slowely with your beloved. Or at a farm with goats with wagging tails are coming to you spontaneously. Or when a child suddenly point to you to a bird that is singing in a tree near to you.
In short, this world exists. And Pet Sounds by Charles Long knows to invoke this world, without you thinking a second about a hard world that often comes close to us.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com

Vertaling
Een warme zachte wereld
Dit kunstwerk bestaat uit lelijke vormen. Zij hebben zachte kleuren en als je ze aanraakt hoor je zachte muziek. Het kunstwerk staat op een plezierige plaats; bij een bankje in een park.
Pet Sounds van Charles Long roept een zachte wereld op, waar geluisterd wordt en op een warme manier gereageerd.
Een wereld waar je met je geliefde ’s ochtends langzaam wakker wordt. Of in een boerderij met geitjes die je spontaan kwispelend tegemoet komen. Of als een kind je plotseling wijst op een vogel die zingt in een boom vlak voor je.
Kortom, deze wereld bestaat. En Pet Sounds van Charles Long weet deze wereld op te roepen, zonder dat je een seconde denkt aan een harde wereld die ons vaak te dichtbij komt.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com

www.madisonsquarepark.org:
Madison Square Art announces Pet Sounds, an interactive, large-scale, mixed-media installation by acclaimed California-based artist Charles Long. Sited on Madison Square Park’s expansive Oval Lawn, Pet Sounds will introduce a snaking network of vibrantly colored pipe railings creating new paths as they wind across the urban oasis. As these railings converge around a common seating area, each railing begins to grow into a unique fantastic form. While the shape of each blob suggests a different set of associations, their uncanny semblances remain wonderfully elusive. As viewers smooth their hands over the undulating biomorphic surfaces, the act of touching produces a variety of sounds and vibrations coming from within the sculptural forms. The installation, commissioned by Mad. Sq. Art, will remain on view daily from May 2 – September 9, 2012.
Artist Charles Long comments, 'My re-occurring interest in the uncanny over many years is in full effect here in the Pet Sounds project where something as familiar and literally grounding as a handrail morphs into an unnamable blob that has a very physical presence with some power to dialog with the viewer’s own somatic sense. As one pets the blobs, a wide range of sounds are triggered and are coming from within the bodies of the forms. The sounds and the sculptural forms connect to the physicality of the viewer and by extension to those of others that are touching the work. I wanted the work to be as visually affecting to park visitors as it is a physical and aural experience for them. I can’t wait to see people sitting on a park bench next to one of these bright orange blobs. Generally, when I look at people looking at my sculptures I just see more sculpture. With Madison Square Park’s almost maze-like repeating patterns of arching pathways, and the way people and their pets are leisurely enjoying these splendid green spaces, I hope I might be an interloper into the park visitors’ unconscious, into what Freud has called the ‘free floating attention.’ I like the idea of Pet Sounds becoming a part of the collective memory, and even dreams, of the unique experiences of New York City.'