NEW YORK—The High Line offers some of the best views in the city and starting this month the viewing experience will be enhanced by a series of special art installations on a billboard at West 18th Street.
The first piece in the High Line Billboard series is an enormous U.S. currency bill by John Baldessari that interestingly most strollers along the elevated park don’t to recognize as art. “The First $100,000 I Ever Made” doesn’t seem to strike people as an advertisement either, so beside the few regularly photographing the 75-by-25 foot billboard standing in a parking lot on 10th Avenue, most gaze west at the expansive riverscape.
Nevertheless, the conceptual work installed on the east side of the High Line makes an interesting comment as the country, littered with Occupy demonstrations, remains mired in a recession with millions unable to find jobs. The U.S. Treasury issued $100,000 bills, featuring President Woodrow Wilson, during a three-week period at this time of the year from 1934 to 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression.
“The First $100,000 I Ever Made” is on view from Dec. 2 to Dec. 23, 2011.
Photos by Arts Observer
Sigh, I wish I had his PR clout…
(not that he hasn’t deserved it 🙂 )