Public Art Fund - Walk the Walk by Kate Gilmore

Like the mazes of office cubicles in so many of the buildings that surround Bryant Park, Walk the Walk comes to life over the course of a working day.

From Monday to Friday, Kate Gilmore’s performance-installation creates a spectacle of color, movement and sound from 8:30am to 6:30pm. Gilmore presents a cubic structure, open on all sides, with a flat roof that functions as a podium. Working in shifts, groups of women take to the roof where they perform an improvisational choreography of everyday movement, such as walking, shuffling, and stomping. Neither professional dancers nor theatrical performers, Gilmore’s participants resemble a random sample of female office workers. They vary in age, race, and body type. Free to perform their artist-assigned task as they choose, they must nevertheless conform to a strict uniform of yellow dresses and beige shoes.

Members of the public are invited to observe the piece from the surrounding Fountain Terrace, but also to enter the open structure. The yellow theme of the women’s dresses continues on both the exterior and interior walls of the structure. Once inside, visitors may hear the reverberating sounds of the movement overhead. In this eccentric concerto of irregular footfalls, the physicality of Gilmore’s performance is experienced anew.

Kate Gilmore is best known for her physically demanding performance videos in which she is typically the sole protagonist. Walk the Walk is Gilmore’s first live public project and also her first to deploy other participants. Her earlier work’s interest in striking and often incongruous images continues in this piece, with its unexpected transformation of architecture, figures, actions, and location. In this way, the artist makes us aware of our assumptions about the codes of appropriate behavior and the limits of self expression. How do the attributes of gender, age, and appearance shape our perception of both social roles and personal desires? In Walk the Walk, Gilmore literally and metaphorically turns the inside out, inviting us into a world at once all too familiar and strangely provocative.

Nicholas Baume
Director & Chief Curator

View full press release

Kate Gilmore will give a free talk on Tuesday, May 11, at 12:30 pm, on Fountain Terrace, Bryant Park.

Major support provided by The Jamison Williams Foundation through the generosity of Billie Tsien and Tod Williams.

Walk the Walk is a project of Public Art Fund’s In the Public Realm, a program started in 1995 to identify and champion innovative public art projects by New York-based emerging artists. In the Public Realm is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Public Art Fund gratefully acknowledges the cooperation of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris; Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe; and Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin.

This exhibition was made possible with the support of the Bryant Park Corporation, a private not-for-profit company, founded in 1980 to renovate, finance and operate Bryant Park, one of the busiest public spaces in the world, without government or philanthropic funding. In addition to providing security and sanitation services, and tending the lawn and seasonal gardens, BPC creates amenities and activities in Bryant Park for over 5 million visitors each year.

Born in 1975, in Washington D.C., Kate Gilmore lives and works in New York City. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Bates College, Lewiston, Maine (1997), and her Masters of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts, New York (2002). Her work has been shown extensively, most recently in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, on view until May 30. She has had solo exhibitions at Locust Projects, Miami, Florida (2009); Galleria Franco Soffiantino, Turin, Italy (2009); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2008); Artpace San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas (2008); and Smith-Stewart Gallery, New York, New York (2008). Gilmore was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2009) and The Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (2007). For additional information, visit www.kategilmore.com.

Sae Hae Chung
Amanda Gale
Lindsey Graham
Michelle Kane
Aiyana Knauer
Kirby Mages
Seyhan Musaoglu
Habby Osk
Kenya (Robinson)
Becky Sellinger
Geneva Sills
Sophia Stoll
Jessica Whittam
Rachel Wieking

Public Art Fund Director Nicholas Baume interviews artist Kate Gilmore on her work, "Walk the Walk".

Kate Gilmore speaks about Walk the Walk in her studio

Q & A with Kate Gilmore

1) How did the idea for Walk the Walk come into being?
Walk the Walk came into being because of a desire to expand my process. I have been in all my video/performance/installation pieces and I have wanted to try new things. The Public Art Fund project gave me the opportunity to push my work in a new direction while still considering themes that I am interested in.

2) You are best known for making performance videos; how different was it for you to make a public art piece?
It has been so much fun to work in a public sphere, to move out of the work—while being present—and to work with a team of fantastic people at Public Art Fund and the women in the piece. I never thought that I could be a “collaborator”, but I was wrong! I am really enjoying the entire process.

3) How much did Walk the Walk evolve from conception to execution?
My proposal for Walk the Walk was pretty much the same as the piece that will be at Bryant Park. We took out some of the women, made it a bit smaller, and changed it to all one color, but besides that, it is pretty true to my original design.

4) Why did you choose Bryant Park as the location for this project?
What’s great about Bryant Park is that it is a park that is not only about recreation. It is a park where people go to work, have meetings, eat lunch. It seems to have a functional purpose in the daily lives of the people who work around the area. I wanted the piece to be in an active place where people are constantly moving in and out and where the actions of the women on the sculpture mirror the daily existence of the individuals who live and work in the area.

5) How did you select the performers? What were you looking for?
I was looking for a mix of people. Old, young, fat, skinny, black, brown, white. The ages are 20-38, sizes 2-10, and a mix of races. In addition to this, I was looking for women who were “tough” in the sense that they could handle the physical and mental challenge of the piece. It takes a certain woman to walk 5 hours a day on an 8x10 foot sculpture!

6) Why do you often work with bright, primary colors?
Good question! I think I cheat… I love color--- intense color. I grew up on The Wizard of Oz and Singing in the Rain. Technicolor. I remember watching these movies and thinking that this is the way I want to see the world. I also understand which colors cause a maximum affect both on camera and, in this case, in a public space.

7) Finally, how does Walk the Walk relate to your larger body of work?
It is very similar, but more ambitious. It speaks to an individual’s daily existence and process and to the struggle and commitment to moving through challenges and obstacles. This piece centers around the sculpture and how the women become the sculpture through their placement, actions and clothing. They are exerting their own personalities and histories into the piece, allowing for a diversity of experience that becomes a part of the physical object.

Walk the Walk will be presented Monday, May 10 through Friday, May 14, 2010 on the Fountain Terrace in Bryant Park, just inside the west entrance to the Park, on 6th Avenue and 41st Street.

Walk the Walk will be open to the public and performed free of charge from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm, daily.

Take the B, D, F, or V train to 42nd Street,
or the 7 train to 5th Avenue-Bryant Park.

View Larger Map

	Welcome	About	Interviews	Visit
Like the mazes of office cubicles in so many of the buildings that surround Bryant Park, Walk the Walk comes to life over the course of a working day. From Monday to Friday, Kate Gilmore’s performance-installation creates a spectacle of color, movement and sound from 8:30am to 6:30pm. Gilmore presents a cubic structure, open on all sides, with a flat roof that functions as a podium. Working in shifts, groups of women take to the roof where they perform an improvisational choreography of everyday movement, such as walking, shuffling, and stomping. Neither professional dancers nor theatrical performers, Gilmore’s participants resemble a random sample of female office workers. They vary in age, race, and body type. Free to perform their artist-assigned task as they choose, they must nevertheless conform to a strict uniform of yellow dresses and beige shoes. Members of the public are invited to observe the piece from the surrounding Fountain Terrace, but also to enter the open structure. The yellow theme of the women’s dresses continues on both the exterior and interior walls of the structure. Once inside, visitors may hear the reverberating sounds of the movement overhead. In this eccentric concerto of irregular footfalls, the physicality of Gilmore’s performance is experienced anew. Kate Gilmore is best known for her physically demanding performance videos in which she is typically the sole protagonist. Walk the Walk is Gilmore’s first live public project and also her first to deploy other participants. Her earlier work’s interest in striking and often incongruous images continues in this piece, with its unexpected transformation of architecture, figures, actions, and location. In this way, the artist makes us aware of our assumptions about the codes of appropriate behavior and the limits of self expression. How do the attributes of gender, age, and appearance shape our perception of both social roles and personal desires? In Walk the Walk, Gilmore literally and metaphorically turns the inside out, inviting us into a world at once all too familiar and strangely provocative. Nicholas Baume Director & Chief Curator View full press release Kate Gilmore will give a free talk on Tuesday, May 11, at 12:30 pm, on Fountain Terrace, Bryant Park. Major support provided by The Jamison Williams Foundation through the generosity of Billie Tsien and Tod Williams. Walk the Walk is a project of Public Art Fund’s In the Public Realm, a program started in 1995 to identify and champion innovative public art projects by New York-based emerging artists. In the Public Realm is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Public Art Fund gratefully acknowledges the cooperation of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris; Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe; and Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin. This exhibition was made possible with the support of the Bryant Park Corporation, a private not-for-profit company, founded in 1980 to renovate, finance and operate Bryant Park, one of the busiest public spaces in the world, without government or philanthropic funding. In addition to providing security and sanitation services, and tending the lawn and seasonal gardens, BPC creates amenities and activities in Bryant Park for over 5 million visitors each year. Born in 1975, in Washington D.C., Kate Gilmore lives and works in New York City. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Bates College, Lewiston, Maine (1997), and her Masters of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts, New York (2002). Her work has been shown extensively, most recently in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, on view until May 30. She has had solo exhibitions at Locust Projects, Miami, Florida (2009); Galleria Franco Soffiantino, Turin, Italy (2009); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2008); Artpace San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas (2008); and Smith-Stewart Gallery, New York, New York (2008). Gilmore was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2009) and The Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (2007). For additional information, visit www.kategilmore.com. Sae Hae Chung Amanda Gale Lindsey Graham Michelle Kane Aiyana Knauer Kirby Mages Seyhan Musaoglu Habby Osk Kenya (Robinson) Becky Sellinger Geneva Sills Sophia Stoll Jessica Whittam Rachel Wieking Public Art Fund Director Nicholas Baume interviews artist Kate Gilmore on her work, "Walk the Walk". Kate Gilmore speaks about Walk the Walk in her studio Q & A with Kate Gilmore *1) How did the idea for Walk the Walk* come into being?** Walk the Walk came into being because of a desire to expand my process. I have been in all my video/performance/installation pieces and I have wanted to try new things. The Public Art Fund project gave me the opportunity to push my work in a new direction while still considering themes that I am interested in. 2) You are best known for making performance videos; how different was it for you to make a public art piece? It has been so much fun to work in a public sphere, to move out of the work—while being present—and to work with a team of fantastic people at Public Art Fund and the women in the piece. I never thought that I could be a “collaborator”, but I was wrong! I am really enjoying the entire process. *3) How much did Walk the Walk* evolve from conception to execution*? My proposal for Walk the Walk* was pretty much the same as the piece that will be at Bryant Park. We took out some of the women, made it a bit smaller, and changed it to all one color, but besides that, it is pretty true to my original design. 4) Why did you choose Bryant Park as the location for this project? What’s great about Bryant Park is that it is a park that is not only about recreation. It is a park where people go to work, have meetings, eat lunch. It seems to have a functional purpose in the daily lives of the people who work around the area. I wanted the piece to be in an active place where people are constantly moving in and out and where the actions of the women on the sculpture mirror the daily existence of the individuals who live and work in the area. 5) How did you select the performers? What were you looking for? I was looking for a mix of people. Old, young, fat, skinny, black, brown, white. The ages are 20-38, sizes 2-10, and a mix of races. In addition to this, I was looking for women who were “tough” in the sense that they could handle the physical and mental challenge of the piece. It takes a certain woman to walk 5 hours a day on an 8x10 foot sculpture! 6) Why do you often work with bright, primary colors? Good question! I think I cheat… I love color--- intense color. I grew up on The Wizard of Oz and Singing in the Rain. Technicolor. I remember watching these movies and thinking that this is the way I want to see the world. I also understand which colors cause a maximum affect both on camera and, in this case, in a public space. *7) Finally, how does Walk the Walk* relate to your larger body of work*? It is very similar, but more ambitious. It speaks to an individual’s daily existence and process and to the struggle and commitment to moving through challenges and obstacles. This piece centers around the sculpture and how the women become the sculpture through their placement, actions and clothing. They are exerting their own personalities and histories into the piece, allowing for a diversity of experience that becomes a part of the physical object. Walk the Walk* will be presented Monday, May 10 through Friday, May 14, 2010 on the Fountain Terrace in Bryant Park, just inside the west entrance to the Park, on 6th Avenue and 41st Street. Walk the Walk will be open to the public and performed free of charge from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm, daily. Take the B, D, F, or V train to 42nd Street, or the 7 train to 5th Avenue-Bryant Park. View Larger Map