Cool Hunting

This weekend Ami and I got to check out You, Urs Fischer's installation at Gavin Brown's Enterprise. (Click images for detail.) The piece is an eight-foot deep crater measuring about 38x30 feet dug within the pristine white walls of the gallery.

According to New York Magazine the pit took a ten days to build and cost about $250,000 using a jackhammer to remove the concrete floor and a backhoe to excavate tons of debris.

Literally breaking down the traditional art show and gallery as commercial space, Fischer also references the rich history of land artists before him, including Walter de Maria's famous Earth Room which is housed just 10 blocks away.

After ducking through a small door, visitors find themselves walking over an uneven mix of dirt and concrete debris down a short hallway (pictured after the jump) to the large gallery.

Within the pit itself or teetering around the perimeter, we felt mischievously giddy, like teenagers hopping a fence. While joking about how the installation was "profound, edgy and gritty," we were impressed by the experience of scale, our dirty shoes and the rare glimpse under the layers of a New York gallery's aesthetic order.

Also on Cool Hunting: Urs Fischer at Cockatoo Island, Gelitin

You
Through 22 December 2007
Gavin Brown's Enterprise
620 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10014 map
tel. +1 212 627 5258

Photos by Keren Richter