Hanna Liden’s bagel sculptures pay tribute to a New York City icon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Hudson River Park at Christopher St.
Through October 20
www.artproductionfund.org
everything slideshow
In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten wrote, “If you have never tasted a bagel, I feel sorry for you.” I understand that completely. I spent countless Sunday mornings as a child going out with my father to pick up lox, whitefish, sable, cream cheese, and a bag of hot, steaming bagels, their aroma lofting through the car as we drove back home, where the rest of the family awaited our arrival with great anticipation. Swedish-born, New York City-based artist Hanna Liden pays tribute to the bagel and her adopted home with the sculptural installation “Everything,” which continues in Hudson River Park through October 20. (The bagels in Ruth Wittenberg Plaza were taken down September 30.) Liden’s bagels are much bigger and harder than the standard hand-rolled, water-boiled doughy delights, which date back to early-seventeenth-century Poland, but that doesn’t make them any less visually appetizing. Carved out of styrofoam and then covered with polyurethane, the bagels are stacked three, four, and five high, except for one that sits alone under a tree, making a unique kind of bench. Some have black and brown areas where they have been toasted — “a romantic tribute to the darkness and grime, which are essential and beautiful characteristics of our city,” Liden notes — and some have poppy or sesame seeds. One of the stacks forms a giant vase, with a tulip sticking out of the top, as Liden, who has previously made vases out of such objects as a takeaway coffee cup, a boot, and a Yankees helmet, has fun with the homophone “flour-flower” while also evoking the work of Claes Oldenburg. To Liden, the bagel also represents the “eternal cycle of city life” and is something that is uniquely New York; bagels don’t taste the same anywhere else in the world.