Tatiana Trouvé Desire Lines

For her first public commission in the United States, Tatiana Trouvé (b. 1968, Cosenza, Italy) has made a work that responds to Central Park. She came to see the miles of pedestrian paths that traverse its landscape as similar to the arteries of a living being. There’s no singular way to walk through the park, but rather a multitude of possible routes that may be followed according to our own desires.

Drawing on existing maps, Trouvé isolated all of the marked pathways in the park and estimated their distances. She identified 212, from secluded paths to prominent thoroughfares, ranging in length from around 60 feet to four miles. Translating her research into three-dimensional form, Trouvé created three large-scale storage racks that house a total of 212 spools. Each spool is wound with rope equivalent in length to a corresponding pathway and labeled to identify its location in the park.

Trouvé’s work is also a reflection on the broader cultural significance of walking. It’s an activity that ranges from personal recreation to political statement, and has inspired poets, musicians, writers, and artists. Thus, Trouvé has associated each pathway with a title drawn from culture and history that relates to walking. In this way, Desire Lines is both a systematic inventory of the park and an invitation to explore the political and poetic resonance of the simple act of taking a walk.

Tatiana Trouvé: Desire Lines is curated by Nicholas Baume.

Tatiana Trouvé (b. 1968, Cosenza, Italy) lives and works in Paris. Solo shows include The Longest Echo—L’écho le plus long at Mamco, Geneva (2014), her first retrospective exhibition; the traveling exhibition I tempi doppi, presented at Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, Museion Bolzano-Bozen, Italy, and Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Germany (2014); Il grande ritratto, an extensive exhibition inspired by the title of Dino Buzzati’s science fiction novel and conceived in response to the challenging architecture of the Kunsthaus Graz, Austria (2010); Tatiana Trouvé at the South London Gallery (2010); A Stay Between Enclosure and Space at the Migros Museum, Zurich (2009); 4 Between 2 and 3 at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2008); and Double Bind at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2007). She has participated in major international group exhibitions including the 29th São Paulo Biennale (2010) and the Venice Biennale (2007, 2003), and has been featured in shows at the Pinault Foundation Punta della Dogana in Venice (2011) and the Hayward Gallery in London (2010).