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Crossing Brooklyn:
"RM03"
Tom Kotik
March 8 - April 25, 2003
Lobby Gallery, Balcony Cases
"RM03" is the second in a series of three
“Crossing Brooklyn” installations by innovative Brooklyn artists
reflecting aspects of life in the borough. The series, which is
organized by Smack Mellon and curated by Marian Griffiths, will continue
with the work of John Beech (May 2-June 27).
In this site-specific installation,
Brooklyn artist Tom Kotik invites you to use your imagination and step
back in time -- into the room of a home demolished during construction
of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE). The BQE was the brainchild of
Robert Moses, chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority.
When construction began in 1937, Brooklyn neighborhoods were divided,
homes were demolished, and people were forced to move to make way for
what many engineers consider to be one of the most unique highways in
the country.
In his “room” the artist sets a miniature bust of Robert Moses on a
stand against the backdrop of old-fashioned wallpaper, symbolically
placing Moses in a space that would still exist if the BQE had never
been built. Kotik, who is both critical of Moses and thankful for the
BQE, asks you to reflect on your own memories of home, and to consider
the idea that a home is never really destroyed if someone remembers
living there. All of the installation’s elements were designed and made
by Kotik, including the plaster bust, wooden stand, and wallcovering.
"I believe it is impossible to completely erase a home by demolishing
it, if there are people that can remember living there," says Kotik.
"New memories are being created every moment that someone drives their
car along the paths once inhabited by others. RM03 is not a critique as
much as a space to pause and reflect. Just as expressways are needed to
get us from place to place, reflection is sometimes necessary to know
why we go there."
The exhibit includes a display on the second-floor balcony with a
collage of maps from 1929 and the present, showing the transformation of
the urban landscape from residential neighborhoods such as Greenpoint,
Cobble Hill and Bay Ridge, to the present BQE.
Tom Kotik is a Brooklyn-based artist, whose exhibitions have been
mounted locally and internationally, including “Banners” (Venice, Italy,
2001); “Trajectories” (Smack Mellon Studios, NYC, 2000); “Once Removed”
(Socrates Sculpture Park, NYC, 2000); and “Perception Machine II”
(Prague, CZ, 2000). He studied Theater Design and Architecture at the
School of the Applied Arts in Prague, and graduated cum laude with a
bachelor degree in Studio Art from New York University.
This exhibition is organized for
Brooklyn Public Library by Smack Mellon and curated by Marian Griffiths.
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