LentSpace: Ingenius Use of Undeveloped Urban Space for Public Art

Is an increase in public art worth an economic downturn? Echoing the creative culture of the New York City Warhol days, cities are seeing planned revenues failing - thus giving their failures over to art.

Is an increase in public art worth an economic downturn? Echoing the creative culture of the New York City Warhol days, cities are seeing planned revenues failing - thus giving their failures over to art.

Yesterday, the New York Times posted an article on a new Art Park, appropriately dubbed "LentSpace," that has been materialized out of an unsuccessful attempt to construct more buildings in lower Manhattan. Situated on an oddly-shaped city block, LentSpace will be an outdoor exhibition and performance space and is on loan for about three years. The 37,000-square-foot park will be open daily year-round, except in winter months.

The construction and composition of the space is quite ingenuous. Check out a slideshow of the space here. Comprised of seemingly random fences and construction materials, each component acts as a dialogue on city park design or the definition of public art. For instance, Tobias Putrih, one of the artists in the initial line-up of the park, decided to address the the chain-link fence that still surrounds the LentSpace park. “The management company insisted that the fence was there to stay because it’s private land,” Mr. Putrih said. “But what does it mean to have a fence around public art?”

Springing from this idea, Putrih built seven lengths of a chain-link fence running alongside the official one. “It blurs the line — the existing fence becomes part of the artwork,” he said. “I decided to work with it.”

While this example is specific to New York City, it is just one more anecdote and lesson for all major cities. In most cases, city plans fail to incorporate and encourage the organic nature of human interaction (an essential component in smothering randomness and inspiring creativity). Yet here is one more case of how creative cultural development springs forth from the ashes.

Read the full article here.