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March 4, 2009
Picking up the pieces at Atlantic Yards
The Brooklyn Paper
by Aisha Gawad
The massive Atlantic Yards development project inspires rage in some and hope in others — but in Guy Ambrosino, it inspires a twisted art installment.
The Prospect Heights-based artist found twisted strips of discarded steel at Bruce Ratner’s demolition site — and turned those strips into an installation that opened Feb. 28 at the Soapbox Gallery on Dean Street, across the street from the Yards site.
The exhibit, called “What Was,” is meant to “document the memory of what was there using the material from the site,” said Ambrosino, an artist and photographer who works out of his Bergen Street studio.
His art also addresses the tense debate between Ratner and residents, who claim that the developer’s plan for a massive complex of skyscrapers, housing and office units and a basketball arena has caused the very urban blight that the project was supposed to cure.
“Steel is a rigid material that serves as a metaphor for how developers work, how difficult they can be,” said Ambrosino. “But when the steel is broken down into these long, flowing arcs, they become something beautiful, something positive and hopeful.”
Posted by eric at March 4, 2009 11:25 AM