Pope.L., “The Great White Way: 22 miles, 9 years, 1 street,” 2000-2009 (©Pope.L, courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York)
Seravalli Playground, St. Vincent’s Triangle, Washington Square Park, Union Square Park
Saturday, September 21, free, 9:45 am – 3:30 pm
www.publicartfund.org
conquest slideshow
On September 21, Newark-born, Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist Pope.L will lead “Conquest,” a crawl starting at Seravalli Playground at Hudson and Horatio Sts. at 9:45 am, continuing to NYC AIDS Memorial Park at St. Vincent’s Triangle around 11:00 and Washington Square Park at approximately 12:30, and then concluding at Union Square Park from 2:45 to 3:30. More than 140 volunteers will make their way on their bellies, becoming one with the New York City landscape. “The reason it’s called ‘Conquest’ is because that’s not what we’re gonna do at all!” (William) Pope.L explains in a Public Art Fund video. “We’re gonna give up stuff. And in giving up stuff, we’re gonna make more stuff for more people.” The one-day-only site-specific, 1.5-mile relay journey will offer up, according to the artist, humility, generosity, mirth, puzzlement, a guffaw, and maybe even some hectoring during these hard times, bringing a new perspective to how we all get by in this thoroughly amazing yet maddeningly frustrating city. Pope.L (eRacism: White Room, Thunderbird Immolation a.k.a. Meditation Square Piece) will be at the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium at the Cooper Union on September 20 at 6:30 for a Public Art Fund talk (free with advance RSVP) about the project, which leads up to two concurrent New York museum exhibitions: “Choir” at the Whitney (beginning October 20) and “member” at MoMA (October 21), which with “Conquest” form “Instigation, Aspiration, Perspiration.”
Pope.L helps “Conquest” participants in Washington Square Park find their way (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Follow-up: It was a beautiful, sunny day for “Conquest” as groups of five differently abled blindfolded volunteers, including pregnant women, the elderly, people with prosthetic limbs, the deaf and blind, the wheelchair-bound, and others, crawled on their bellies one block at a time to call attention to physical privilege. The crawlers were cheered on by well-wishers there to show their support; they were also stared at or ignored by passersby who had no idea what was going on, as if it were just another weird thing happening in the city. Pope.L was following along, either spritzing a perfumed mist in front of the participants to help guide them by sense of smell or, at my suggestion, bending down to feel how hot the sidewalk was. It was an inspirational event that, as with all of Pope.L’s pieces, had important social points to make. You can see photos and videos from “Conquest” here.