The Art Newspaper

High Line to double its size in second year

When it opens Section 2 next Spring, the public art park will host rooftop dancers, sound installations and faux billboard trellises

By Helen Stoilas. Web only
Published online: 09 December 2010

Trisha Brown's Roof Piece, here performed in 1973, will be re-staged to celebrate the High Line's second anniversary. (Photo: Courtesy of the Trisha Brown Dance Company/Babette Mangolte)

NEW YORK. When the High Line opens its second segment, known simply as Section 2, in the Spring next year, it will double the length of the public art park. This will “greatly increase the possibilities for artists to work site-specifically,” says Lauren Ross, the curator and director of art programmes for Friends of the High Line.

To coincide with the opening of Section 2 in the Spring (a more definite date could not be confirmed), the High Line Art is installing a warmly welcoming sound piece by artist Julianne Swartz titled Digital Empathy (Feel Safe in the Knowledge that Life Loves You). At 11 different stations located throughout the park, visitors will hear computer-generated voices, “delivering messages of empathy, support, and love” according to the press materials.

But before this, the organisation kicks off its spring season with a new three-piece sculptural installation by Kim Beck called Space Available which mimics the skeletal framework that supports billboard advertisements, but are actually flat cut-outs of perspective drawings.

And to celebrate its second anniversary, the High Line has invited the Trisha Brown Dance Company to re-stage the dancer’s historic Roof Piece in early June atop buildings adjacent to the park. Originally performed in 1971 over a ten-block area in New York, the work features dancers transmitting their movements like a beacon or signal to a performer on the next rooftop over.

A spur of Section 2's metal walkway brings visitors to a view over 26th Street. A viewing frame recalls the billboards that were once attached to the High Line (Design by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro)