mixed media installation

December 4, 1996 - January 31, 1997

Broadway and Canal Street Subway Station

Russian artist Alexander Brodsky transformed the Canal Street Subway Station into a Venetian canal, incorporating a shadow puppet style to create the illusion. The gondolas were made out of tin; wooden cutouts were placed in a shallow tank of water gently rocked by waves. Lights and faint sounds of music and lapping water were used to enhance the experience. The rear wall of the installation was filled with a perspective drawing of an ancient Venetian street, creating a sense of depth. Upon completing his installation, Brodsky described the project as "one of the millions of strange things that happen to you in this city. You have to transfer subways--to do this you must go through a long space of dead station. You want to pass through this space as fast as possible and suddenly in the middle of it you see a mirage--lights, water, boats, sounds of street life. You see a canal. It's real and unreal at the same time. You stop for a few minutes trying to understand what it is and why it is here and then you go on with your life, keeping the mirage in your memory. You might come back another day to check--was it a dream or not?"

Artist Bio
Alexander Brodsky, who currently lives in New York, was born in Moscow in 1955. He is part of the first generation of Russian artists to experience intellectual and artistic freedom, previously unavailable under the old Soviet regime. With little opportunity to exhibit or create public projects, Brodsky was a founding member of a small but influential group of artists and architects known as the Paper Architects. They were so called because, while their projects were ambitious and innovative, the only outlet for their creative vision was on paper. Brodsky has exhibited work at The Installation Aedes Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2002); Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Gallery, New York, NY (1999); the State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russia (1998); and The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1996).

Sponsorship
Canal Street Subway Project was a joint project of the Public Art Fund--commissioned through In the Public Realm, a program of site specific proposals and projects by New York artists--and MTA/Arts for Transit. Additional support was provided by United Aluminum, Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, A. Robert Towbin, and Robert Appleton.

In the Public Realm 1995 was supported with public funds from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs' Challenge Grant Initiative, the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, The Silverweed Foundation and the Heathcote Art Foundation.

Location
On the tracks of the transfer between the 6 and the N/R trains at the Broadway and Canal Street Subway Station.