Women in yellow are boxed in atop a large cubicle in Kate Gilmore installation in Bryant Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Bryant Park Fountain Terrace
Sixth Ave. at 41st St.
Daily through May 14, free, 8:30 am – 6:00 pm
online slideshow
www.publicartfund.org
For her piece at the 2010 Whitney Biennial, “Standing Here,” SVA graduate Kate Gilmore dons a pink polka-dot dress and high heels and attempts to escape from a tall, narrow column. Having broken out, it seems she has headed south to Bryant Park, where she has set up “Walk the Walk,” a live-performance installation running through Friday, May 14. Every day from 8:30 to 6:30, mimicking the average workday, a group of women dressed in matching bright yellow dresses and beige pumps march atop an eight-by-ten similarly yellow structure in random choreographed movements; they could be in the office carrying out mindless duties, making their way to work through Grand Central Terminal, or rushing through the park to pick up lunch and then get back to their desk. (The setup even recalls a boxing ring, as if the women are fighting to survive in the business world.) The Technicolor yellow clashes with the grays, greens, and blacks of Bryant Park and the surrounding buildings, standing out in a way that contrasts how their uniforms make them all look the same. As the women weave in and around each other, they occasionally stomp on the surface, creating a percussive soundtrack that is especially effective if visitors listen to it from inside the hollowed-out cubicle structure. Gilmore, who was born in Washington, D.C., and lives and works in New York City, will be at Bryant Park on Tuesday at 12:30 to give a free lunchtime talk on the installation, a project of the Public Art Fund.