Manhattan West, an eight-acre mixed-use development in central New York between Moynihan Train Hall and Hudson Yards, will soon be home to two new public works of art by Charles Ray And Christophe Laine. They are the most high-profile artists to have contributed to the sprawling complex, built by Brookfield Properties to house office skyscrapers alongside open-air plazas, a residential tower and other pockets of activity. The work will be unveiled on June 5.
Wool’s commission, her first public work, is a mosaic that will be installed in the lobby of the Two Manhattan West office, while Ray’s will be more immediately accessible to passers-by. Placed outside One and Two Manhattan West, Ray’s sculpture, titled adam and eve (2023), consists of two larger-than-life, selfie-friendly figures made of the glistening, finely machined blocks of stainless steel for which the Los Angeles-based artist is known. It comes after a banner year for Ray which saw the opening of major career retrospectives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Center Pompidou, and his takeover of a rooftop terrace at the Whitney Museum during the 2022 Whitney Biennale. .
In a statement, Ray highlighted the “harmonious relationship” between Manhattan West’s architecture and its setting. adam and eve is designed to “sit and stand in the spatial reality of the civic world that defines them,” he writes. “Eve sits at eye level with the viewer and the liveliness of the street, with its light and sound, is reflected on her surface. Adam, standing, wobbles as he looks toward Ninth Avenue. The figures move the space as if the space were cake batter in a bowl.
Rendering of the east facade of Two Manhattan West, with artwork by Christopher Wool. Courtesy of Brookfield Properties and Christopher Wool.
Wool also plays with scale in his mosaic, which translates one of his recently created paintings into a massive work of stone and glass with the help of artisans in Venice. Measuring 28 feet by 39 feet, the mosaic, Crosstown Traffic News (2023), marks Wool’s first time working in the medium and is his largest piece to date. Installed in the lobby of a commercial skyscraper, but visible from the street through floor-to-ceiling glass, the mosaic highlights the blurred boundaries of private public space, most recently exemplified by the so-called mini – bean sculpture by Anish Kapoor, which base bulges of a luxury condo in Tribeca on the sidewalk.
Current view of Christopher Wool’s Crosstown Traffic News (2023) Photograph by Fabrizio Travisanutto. Courtesy of Christopher Wool.
