www.we-make-money-not-art.com:
Breaking out certain windows, the artist has created faces in each of the 48 outer grids on the building. The windows that remain reflect the light of the sky, the sun and the moon producing human faces from certain angles.
The faces appear and disappear according to the precise position of the viewer as well. 'You have to move,' says Wulsi. 'It's a kind of active perception, many people may pass there and never notice anything.' The viewing angles change throughout the year as the sun's elevation in the sky changes.
The cycle of appearance and disappearance is underscored by the demolition process, which consists in the removal of the building from the top down, floor by floor.
The demolition is expected to last until March of 2007.
www.wikipedia.org:
The Caseros Prison Demolition Project '' 80,000 Tons, which contains 16 Tons and Aparecidos, is the work of artist Seth Wulsin. It uses the defunct Caseros Prison of Buenos Aires, Argentinlition as raw materials.
Aparecido is the past participle for the Spanish verb aparecer - to appear. Its second meaning is apparition or ghost. It may also refer in an oblique way to Argentina's Dirty War, in which an estimated 30,000 people, "Desaparecidos" were disappeared between 1976 and 1981 by the military junta, many of them thrown from airplanes into the Rio Plate.
Sixteen Tons, the name of a popular song written in the late 1940s, referred to the amount of coal a miner was expected to load in a day, but in this context may refer to the amount of glass broken out through the installation, or de-installation, process. 80,000 tons is the approximate weight of the entire building, and the debris that the demolition produced.
www.instituteforpublicart.org:
For 16 Tons and Aparecidos, artist Seth Wulsin and a team spent five weeks breaking out windows in the 22-story Caseros Prison building in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His selection of windows created the images of faces (aparecidos), which appeared when sun reflected in the remaining panes. The work included 48 faces spanning 18 stories, which shined out from the prison's window grids at varying times of day. Over the course of the next year and a half, the building was demolished floor byloor, and with it the images.
The prison's window grids''each one 17-feet (5.2 m) tall and 9-feet (2.7 m) wide, and comprised of 209 circular, semi-opaque windows each eight inches (203 mm) in diameter''served as pixelated screens. The faces were completely a function of space and light''the dark interior space of the prison, and the light shining through the optically reflective space of the remaining windows. The images were engineered to be visible from varying positions in the street depending on time of day and according to seasonal changes in the sun's relative position to the earth. The viewing angles change throughout the year as the sun's elevation in the sky changes.
On a basic level, the demolition of the prison, contracted out by the city government of Buenos Aires to the Argentine military, is the seed for the artwork. The building was slated for demolition in 2001, but the process has been subject to various legal, environmental and bureaucratic roadblocks. The original plan was tthe building in three steps. But the implosion was stopped at the last minute by a group of neighbors concerned about the possibility of damaging environmental effects, including asbestos poisoning and the possibility of driving millions of rats out of the tunnels they occupy underneath the prison. Instead, Caseros was demolished by mechanical means, floor by floor, from the top down.
The project connects to Argentinian history. Aparecido is the past participle for the Spanish verb aparecer, to appear. Its second meaning is apparition or ghost. It may also refer in an oblique way to Argentina's Dirty War, in which political prisoners were thrown out of airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean. These political prisoners were known as 'los desaperecidos.' 'Sixteen Tons' is the name of a popular song written in the late 1940s. It referred to the amount of coal a miner was expected to load in a day, but in this context may refer to the amount of glass broken out through the installation, or de-installation,
By making the visibility of the aparecidos dependent on the daily, monthly, and yearly lunar and solar cycles, and the position of the viewer on the ground, Wulsin connects the ugly history of the prison to the larger cycle of cosmic movement. As the building disappeared through the demolition processes, viewers were exposed to hidden dimensions of place and physical history.
Source: Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts.
www.we-make-money-not-art.com:
New York film maker Kellen Quinn is making a documentary on the piece. Buenos Aires film maker Andres La Penna is filming the entire demolition of the building in collaboration with Wulsin.
www.wikipedia.org:
Seth Wulsin (born in Spring Valley, NY) is an artist working primarily with space and light through large-scale, site-specific, ephemeral sculpture and drawing.
Wulsin is best known for the work, 16 Tons, Prison Demolition, a massive ongoing, public piece in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He is a member of the art collectives Artistas en Latino America and Wubacawi and founder of Cajitas (2009).
Wulsin currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Breaking out certain windows, the artist has created faces in each of the 48 outer grids on the building. The windows that remain reflect the light of the sky, the sun and the moon producing human faces from certain angles.
The faces appear and disappear according to the precise position of the viewer as well. 'You have to move,' says Wulsi. 'It's a kind of active perception, many people may pass there and never notice anything.' The viewing angles change throughout the year as the sun's elevation in the sky changes.
The cycle of appearance and disappearance is underscored by the demolition process, which consists in the removal of the building from the top down, floor by floor.
The demolition is expected to last until March of 2007.
www.wikipedia.org:
The Caseros Prison Demolition Project '' 80,000 Tons, which contains 16 Tons and Aparecidos, is the work of artist Seth Wulsin. It uses the defunct Caseros Prison of Buenos Aires, Argentinlition as raw materials.
Aparecido is the past participle for the Spanish verb aparecer - to appear. Its second meaning is apparition or ghost. It may also refer in an oblique way to Argentina's Dirty War, in which an estimated 30,000 people, "Desaparecidos" were disappeared between 1976 and 1981 by the military junta, many of them thrown from airplanes into the Rio Plate.
Sixteen Tons, the name of a popular song written in the late 1940s, referred to the amount of coal a miner was expected to load in a day, but in this context may refer to the amount of glass broken out through the installation, or de-installation, process. 80,000 tons is the approximate weight of the entire building, and the debris that the demolition produced.
www.instituteforpublicart.org:
For 16 Tons and Aparecidos, artist Seth Wulsin and a team spent five weeks breaking out windows in the 22-story Caseros Prison building in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His selection of windows created the images of faces (aparecidos), which appeared when sun reflected in the remaining panes. The work included 48 faces spanning 18 stories, which shined out from the prison's window grids at varying times of day. Over the course of the next year and a half, the building was demolished floor byloor, and with it the images.
The prison's window grids''each one 17-feet (5.2 m) tall and 9-feet (2.7 m) wide, and comprised of 209 circular, semi-opaque windows each eight inches (203 mm) in diameter''served as pixelated screens. The faces were completely a function of space and light''the dark interior space of the prison, and the light shining through the optically reflective space of the remaining windows. The images were engineered to be visible from varying positions in the street depending on time of day and according to seasonal changes in the sun's relative position to the earth. The viewing angles change throughout the year as the sun's elevation in the sky changes.
On a basic level, the demolition of the prison, contracted out by the city government of Buenos Aires to the Argentine military, is the seed for the artwork. The building was slated for demolition in 2001, but the process has been subject to various legal, environmental and bureaucratic roadblocks. The original plan was tthe building in three steps. But the implosion was stopped at the last minute by a group of neighbors concerned about the possibility of damaging environmental effects, including asbestos poisoning and the possibility of driving millions of rats out of the tunnels they occupy underneath the prison. Instead, Caseros was demolished by mechanical means, floor by floor, from the top down.
The project connects to Argentinian history. Aparecido is the past participle for the Spanish verb aparecer, to appear. Its second meaning is apparition or ghost. It may also refer in an oblique way to Argentina's Dirty War, in which political prisoners were thrown out of airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean. These political prisoners were known as 'los desaperecidos.' 'Sixteen Tons' is the name of a popular song written in the late 1940s. It referred to the amount of coal a miner was expected to load in a day, but in this context may refer to the amount of glass broken out through the installation, or de-installation,
By making the visibility of the aparecidos dependent on the daily, monthly, and yearly lunar and solar cycles, and the position of the viewer on the ground, Wulsin connects the ugly history of the prison to the larger cycle of cosmic movement. As the building disappeared through the demolition processes, viewers were exposed to hidden dimensions of place and physical history.
Source: Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts.
www.we-make-money-not-art.com:
New York film maker Kellen Quinn is making a documentary on the piece. Buenos Aires film maker Andres La Penna is filming the entire demolition of the building in collaboration with Wulsin.
www.wikipedia.org:
Seth Wulsin (born in Spring Valley, NY) is an artist working primarily with space and light through large-scale, site-specific, ephemeral sculpture and drawing.
Wulsin is best known for the work, 16 Tons, Prison Demolition, a massive ongoing, public piece in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He is a member of the art collectives Artistas en Latino America and Wubacawi and founder of Cajitas (2009).
Wulsin currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.