May Ivy Martin will offer “Tree Kisses” along Fourteenth St. as part of Art in Odd Places festival
CEREMONY. HABITUATION. MYTH. OBSESSION. SUPERSTITION. LITURGY.
14th St. between Ave. C & the Hudson River
Through Monday, October 10
Admission: free
www.artinoddplaces.org
Now in its seventh year, Art in Odd Places lines all of Fourteenth St., from Ave. C in the east to the Hudson River in the west, with site-specific audio and visual installations, interventions, and performance-art projects right on the street. Continuing through October 10, this year’s edition, curated by El Museo del Barrio’s Trinidad Fombella and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art’s Kalia Brooks, focuses on ritual, with works from more than sixty artists exploring the political and the personal, the individual and the community, the religious and the cultural. Scott Andresen’s “Daily Portage,” consisting of quilted detritus, can be found in shop windows between Ave. A & First Ave. Daniel Bejar adds history to subway signage for “Get Lost!” Tom Bogaert will create “Double Portraits” in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe each night from 5:00 to 7:00. Michael Borowski’s “Wash Closely” mobile sink offers passersby the opportunity to cleanse themselves in public. Laurie LeBreton’s “Pilgrimage” features more than three hundred handmade paper figures in the Fourteenth St. Framing Gallery re-creating a Buddhist cave pilgrimage in Laos. On October 6, Lawrence Graham-Brown will perform “Gimme Bak Ma Clothes!,” referencing Thomas Dartmouth Rice of the American Minstrelsy Theater and the Jim Crow laws. From October 7 to 9, Marissa Mickelberg will take a goat for a walk in “Goat Walk.” On October 8, Rob Andrews’s “Union Square Clean” will involve forty people cloaked in black, gathering in the park to have their feet washed by strangers, while a tuxedoed LuLu LoLo will doff her chapeau to you in “A Tip of the Hat on 14th Street.” On Saturday and Sunday, Alexa Hoyer, dressed in traditional Bavarian garb, will shine your shoes and take your picture in Union Square for “Just a German Shoeshine Girl,” while Lois Weaver and Lori E. Seid will hang laundry and tell stories for “Commit an Act of Domestic Terrorism.” And on Sunday, Julia Barbee will walk the length of Fourteenth St. combining prayer, perfume, and poetry for “Before/After Scenting New York.” You might be used to seeing a lot of strange things on Fourteenth St., but be prepared for things to get a whole lot stranger during this fun festival.