New York Art@Site www.artatsite.com Vito Acconci Waterfall Out and In
Artist:

Vito Acconci

Title:

Waterfall Out and In

Year:
2010
Adress:
Newtown Creek
Website:
www.nyc.gov:
Excellence in Design Award, 1998, The Art Commission of the City of New York.
Acconci’s artwork 'shakes' or 'loosens' the edge of the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant, where the plant and the neighborhood meet. Instead of the rigid lines and clear demarcations we expect, the fountain’s edge deliberately confounds us. The fountain curves backwards and forwards along the perimeter of the plant.
At the entrance to the plant, waterfalls greet visitors; a pond becomes part of the building, visible through a glass enclosure. Outside, the concrete base of the fountain loops into the pond, bringing a strip of sidewalk down into the water and extending the sidewalk into the building. At the bottom of the ramp into the plant, you can sit surrounded by the pond – you’re inside the space of the building but outside the actual walls of the building.Acconci Studio is a mix of poetry & geometry, computer-scripting & sentence-structure, narrative & biology. They make spaces inside-out & fluid, braided & knotted & morphed, stretched out & burst into particles: they want their spaces to liberate their users. They design buildings & plazas & landscapes, but they design also furniture & clothing & vehicles & products.