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For immediate release

Public Art Fund presents…

Chris Doyle
Commutable

Entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan

Opens September 12, 1996

Beginning Friday, September 6 and continuing through Tuesday, September 9th, artist Chris Doyle and a team of 20 assistants will work around the clock, on the painstaking process of applying a layer of gold leaf to the steps of the Manhattan-side entrance of the Williamsburg Bridge. To the pedestrian traveling over these steps, the work may appear as a seemingly simple gesture--both eye catching and unexpectedly beautiful--that will transform the portal within this much traveled passageway.

When Chris Doyle was commissioned by the Public Art Fund to create a new public art installation, he was drawn to the entranceway of the Williamsburg Bridge. Commutable celebrates the optimism and ambitions of this prominent 19th Century New York structure and highlights the Department of Transportation's renovation efforts currently underway. This exciting collaboration between the artist, the Public Art Fund and the New York City Department of Transportation responds to one of the most prevalent historical functions of public art--the creation of monuments that most often depict political leaders and war heroes. These individual monuments, such as the Sherman at Grand Army Plaza, raised upon pedestals and scattered around our public parks and plazas, are occasionally, like the busts of ancient Egyptian kings, gilded with a layer of gold leaf.

"While evocative of the aspirations of past immigrant populations on both sides of the bridge," writes Doyle, "the gold is used in an ephemeral way, in time worn away by the foot traffic of the daily commute. Made with the materials of urban monumentality, the work is integrated into the daily experience of the pedestrians and cyclists who use the bridge." Commutable is thus deliberately anti-heroic and necessarily functional.

Chris Doyle lives and works in New York City where he has created installations for sites including the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Grand Central Station, and P.S. 1, as well as the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Art Awareness.

Commutable is a project of In the Public Realm, a series of site-specific proposals and projects by emerging New York artists, organized by the Public Art Fund. It is also made possible through the support and cooperation of the NYC Department of Transportation.

About Public Art Fund
The Public Art Fund is New York's leading presenter of artists' projects, new commissions, installations and exhibitions in public spaces. With twenty-five years of experience and an international reputation, the Public Art Fund identifies, coordinates and realizes a diversity of major projects by both established and emerging artists throughout New York City. By bringing artworks outside the traditional context of museums and galleries, the Public Art Fund provides a unique platform for an unparalleled public encounter with the art of our time.

The Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous gifts from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

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Public Art Fund
tel: (212) 980-4575
e-mail: press@publicartfund.org