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Empty Pedestals Project
The Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York City, 1991
With Linda Lindroth
   
   

The Empty Pedestals Project for the Storefront for Art + Architecture, New York City. The Empty Pedestals Project was an experimental forum organized by the Storefront for Art and Architecture to examine public art sites-that term referring to a space that has already been coded by the government as a space for art. Each site has an empty pedestal: its artwork having been removed through theft, vandalism, or storage rather than maintenance.

The site of this project on Randall's Island in Queens was formerly the pedestal for the Discus Thrower. Given that Randall's Island was once the site of a refuge for juvenile delinquents, it would seem that the construction of a stadium for high school athletic events was a positive and constructive evolution of the site. With the Punch & Judy shows in the Tuileries Gardens of Paris in min, we proposed to add to the activities that Randall's Island accommodates by constructing a mini-amphitheater for the showing of children's video entertainment. This project entitled "The Randall's Island Children's Video Theater," uses the original pedestal as the balance point (fulcrum) for a structure which consists of bleacher-type seating cantilevered off of one side and a large video screen cantilevered off of the other side. A ramp accessing the bleachers anchors the structure to the ground.