mixed media
 
Whitney Biennial in Central Park

March 7, 2002 - June 30, 2002

Bow Bridge at the Central Park Lake

For the first time in recent history, the Public Art Fund and the Whitney Museum of American Art co-curated a major exhibition in Central Park as part of the Whitney Museum's 2002 Biennial Exhibition. Artists Keith Edmier, Roxy Paine, Kiki Smith, Kim Sooja, and Brian Tolle were commissioned to make dynamic new work suited for specific sites within Central Park. Together, these five installations represented a broad overview of contemporary approaches to public art that were both thought-provoking and accessible to the largest possible audience.

Bow Bridge is the white 19th-century cast iron landmark spanning the Central Park Lake. There, beneath the bridge, Brian Tolle presented Waylay, a series of scattered splashes which appeared to be caused by someone skipping a rock across the water. Created by an invisible underwater system of compressed air valves, this piece had both a playful and ghostly presence, subtly disrupting the everyday calm of the lake.

Artist Bio
Brian Tolle was born in 1964 in Queens, and currently lives and works in New York. He attended Parsons School of Design, New York and SUNY at Albany, and received his MFA from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut. Tolle has recently had solo shows at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, California; Parsons School of Design, New York; Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Missouri; and Basilico Fine Arts, New York. Recent group shows include "Sonsbeek 9: LocusFocus," Sonsbeek Park, Arnhem, The Netherlands; "Crossing the Line," Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York; "Over the Edges: The Corners of Gent," Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium; and "Young Americans 2," The Saatchi Collection, London, England.

Sponsorship
The Whitney Biennial in Central Park, organized by the Public Art Fund, was sponsored by Bloomberg. The exhibition received additional support from City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, Cultural Challenge Grant 2002, The Third Millennium Foundation, and Melissa and Robert Soros.

Location
Waylay was sited west of the Bethesda Fountain at Bow Bridge at the Central Park Lake.