Visual Artist Jenny Holzer Commissioned for NYC AIDS Memorial Installation

NEW YORK, March 4, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- World-renowned visual artist Jenny Holzer has been commissioned by the Board of Directors of the New York City AIDS Memorial (http://nycaidsmemorial.org) to design a text installation for the surface of the memorial.  Holzer is known for her text-based artworks created for public spaces, including a memorial installation at 7 World Trade Center.

The unveiling of Holzer's selections from "Song of Myself" and her design comes as construction begins at St. Vincent's Hospital Park, located at the intersection of West 12th Street and Greenwich Avenue in the West Village.  The artwork is subject to review and approval by the NYC Public Design Commission, which must approve all permanent artworks displayed on City- owned property.  Rudin Management is constructing the memorial and the new park for the community as part of its redevelopment of the former hospital complex.

"We are excited to see construction beginning on the New York City AIDS Memorial," said Keith Fox, President of the organization's Board of Directors. "We are especially moved that Jenny Holzer has agreed to bring her unique voice to the memorial, adding an additional layer of content and meaning to a powerful physical reminder of the 100,000+ New Yorkers who have died from AIDS."

The New York City AIDS Memorial, designed by Brooklyn-based architects studio a+i, will feature an 18-foot steel canopy sculpture as the dramatic gateway to the new park, as well as a central granite water feature and granite benches.  The paving's artwork, designed by Holzer, will include passages from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" engraved in a dense spiral emanating from the central water feature. 

Says Holzer, "The artwork for the New York City AIDS Memorial will include lines from Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself," a poem of strength and joy.  My friend, the poet Henri Cole, suggested Whitman and Henri was right. Whitman's message of hope, of dignity in the face of death, of the glories of an embodied life, and of transcendence in the face of oppressiveness and tragedy, spoke to the requirements of the memorial and universalized them. Whitman was also a proud New Yorker, a poet of the people threaded through his city, a man whose work includes paeans to the metropolis that he thought represented the greatest realization of human diversity."

Christopher Tepper and Paul Kelterborn, two urban planners who have never known a world without AIDS, launched a grassroots campaign to create the memorial in 2011.  Nearly 500 architects from around the world submitted designs for the memorial during an ideas competition held in late 2011, sponsored by Architectural Record and Architizer and displayed at the AIA's Center for Architecture. The jury, chaired by Michael Arad, designer of the National September 11th Memorial, selected a winning design by Brooklyn-based architectural firm studio a+i.  The AIDS Memorial is expected to open on World AIDS Day in December, 2015.   

About New York City AIDS Memorial: The memorial project was launched in 2011 by urban planners Christopher Tepper and Paul Kelterborn to recognize and preserve the history of the AIDS crisis through the creation of a memorial to honor New York City's 100,000+ men, women and children who have died from AIDS, and to commemorate and celebrate the efforts of the caregivers and activists who responded heroically to the crisis.  Their efforts evolved into the New York City AIDS Memorial organization.  For more information about the New York City AIDS Memorial, visit http://nycaidsmemorial.org, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NYCAIDSMemorial and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AIDSMemPark. Additional images can also be found at http://nycaidsmemorial.org.

Media Contact:
Kathy Malangone, [email protected], 917-680-7122

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150304/179705

SOURCE New York City AIDS Memorial

Related Links

http://nycaidsmemorial.org