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Friday, the three of us headed over to No Longer Empty’s (previously here) 14th exhibition titled How Much Do I Owe You? located in the former Bank of Manhattan in Long Island City’s Clock Tower. No Longer Empty aims to revitalize communities through art. They create site specific, socially-conscious public art exhibits usually in unoccupied yet interesting spaces.
Inspired by the Bank building, 26 artists from 15 countries take on the topic of money and its value during these tumultuous economic times of growing debt and job insecurity. The space is filled with large-scale murals, installations, and videos, in addition to interactive areas that are especially kid-friendly such as drawing your own “Fundred” dollar bill at one installation, and filling in forms on ‘Surplus’ and ‘Debt’, considering the concepts beyond the monetary significance, as well as offering up humorous buttons on the themes.
There’s way too much to go into here, but the three vaults downstairs should not go without mention…even empty they would be fun to experience, but each one, in very different approaches, makes great use of the space including the security boxes and balance sheets.
We had a lot of fun at this exhibit. Some of the highlights for us include Guerra de la Paz’s snake-like ties in his Sealing the Deal (top); Ghost of a Dream’s wall murals, both In Banks We Trust where the word TRUST drops out boldly from walls covered with handwritten questionably trustworthy bank slogans, and their other mural The Price of Happiness, a large-scale collage made up of losing lottery tickets and Buddhist afterworld money (second and third works from top); also, Theodoros Stamatogiannis’ Ping Pong table straddled tightly between two walls, symbolizing the lack of a level playing field in society.
How Much Do I Owe You? will be on exhibit through March 13th, 2013 and is only a block from the subway. We’re looking forward to seeing what No Longer Empty comes up with next.
CollabCubed 