Olafur Eliasson's New York City Waterfalls

James Kalm bikes around New York's Upper Bay to bring viewers a ground floor look at Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls. Estimated at $13 million dollars, this is the Icelandic/ Danish artist's largest project to date, with four, ten story towers, sending thousands of gallons of water per minute cascading into the East River. Kalm is accompanied by Lamar Clarkson for a walking tour of the Brooklyn Bridge. Brief glimpses of all the towers are featured, as well as views under lights at night.

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Entertainment

Tags:

• James
• Kalm
• Lamar
• Clarkson
• Olafur
• Eliasson
• New
• York
• City
• Waterfalls
• Brooklyn
• Bridge
• sculpture
• Museum
• Modern
• Art
• architect

[RonSchira]

Loren, are you writing on this for the 'Rail? I don't know enough about the artist and am curious to your opinion. Is it art or public charlatanry?

[jameskalm]

Ron,

At this point I'm not going to write about "the Watterfalls", it's already gotten tons of ink including Jerry Saltz (you can read at art-net). Is it art? For 15 mill it better be. I just wish people could get up close and wet, and that it'd stay up during the winter and freeze. You could probably irrigate half of Africa with this equipment.

[theflatbushgardens]

I think that the revenue generate by visitors to the site and the emotional value for us New Yorkers to be able to have a piece of nature nearby make this artwork highly valuable. Bravo to the artist!

[ExMachine]

'It's pretty'

Mr. Eliasons waterfalls echo his previous works many of which have been considered successful and well liked by the public (not an insignificant consideration in the commissionisng of public art). I do not believe they are of no artistic value.

At the very least they are a bit strange. They remind of the ship up a tree at the end of Herzogs 'Aguirre'.

[MrWowforever]

LCM-i don't want to sound like a grump, i just want more (or less!) from public art. Gordan matta-clark called public art he detested as 'plaza plop', these feel like that to me.

[LawrenceCharlesMille]

MrWow - I'm with you on this one. These civic art extravaganza's are good for the tourist trade. Plus Bloomberg is trying to make up for the damage Mayor Rudy G. caused when he publicly acted like a school-marm about the Sensation show. So now we have Mc'art. Branded like Louis Vuitton, BMW, riding on the crowd pleasing Tate Weather Project (yes, it can be done with smoke and mirrors).

i feel better now.

[samaytara]

its nice seeing these waterfalls everyday coming home from work.

[LawrenceCharlesMille]

Yep, that there's big famous water.

Those wild and crazy foreigners. Olafur's for the environment ain't he?

Thank you James.

Best -

[spawndonacle]

Heck, I was going to unleash my inner geek and calculate the cost per minute to run these pumps when I encountered some high resolution images. The stream looks fairly thin. Does anyone know the gallons per minute that are being toppled? "Obscene" may be too strong. Conspicuous waste I'll stand behind. I had just spent the 100 degree day replacing the alternator in an American car unable to generate enough electricity to spark its plugs. This tainted my comments. I liked the scaffolding.

[MrWowforever]

i agree with you guys, it's a corporate spectacle from mayor bloomberg to make him look 'cultured' to all the tourists. from high above in his corporate offices they throw down these 'sprinklers' like they're good for us. as a spectacle they are the equivalent of a roller coaster, no artistic value at all. just a ride, without the thrill. a bad ride disguised as art. bruce nauman spitting water out his mouth achieves much more with significantly less.