Though it certainly saw its fair share of odd sights when it housed a hotel during Times Square’s seedier years, The Last Lot — the Art Production Fund’s temporary public art project space on a vacant lot at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan — has had an eyeful in the last few months. First it hosted the rooftops of subterranean suburban homes by David Brooks, and functioning oil pumps by Josephine Meckseper, and later this week a constellation of glass stars by Kiki Smith will land on the lot.
Smith’s installation, which takes over the lot Thursday and will remain there through September 4, is titled “Chorus” and will feature a series of free-standing, star-shaped sculptures of hand-blown glass ranging in size from 18 inches to six feet. The installation of cathedral glass sculptures was inspired by the life, work, and legacy of Josephine Baker, the African American dancer and actor who spent much of her life performing as Paris’s most famous cabaret dancer. Baker was also active in the Civil Rights movement and adopted many children from all over the world, calling them “The Rainbow Tribe.”
Smith, whose work often takes up overtly or obliquely feminist themes, said in a press release announcing the new project that: “As the sun shines through and glitters upon the translucent and opaque glass, the stars will contrast with the raw urban lot.”
“Kiki Smith is a visionary of our time, and it is an honor for us to work with her on a major public artwork,” APF Co-Founders Yvonne Force Villareal and Doreen Remen said in the announcement. “We are longtime admirers of her work and inviting her to create a site-specific piece for the highly trafficked site of the Last Lot is a tremendous opportunity for Art Production Fund.”
— Benjamin Sutton