The artists explore the idea of public space under constant surveillance.
An exhibition focusing on surveillance of public space opens at New York’s Park Avenue Armory. The authors are Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Swiss architects and designers Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. They offer their vision of today’s public space, where CCTV cameras, drones and other surveillance devices are seen as an integral part.
The installation is based on the Brothers Grimm’s tale about Hansel and Gretel interpreted by the authors as an artistic comment on our surveillance-laden society. Visitors can feel like the children in the fairytale who navigated their way home with a trail of breadcrumbs. Visitors can also see the “surveillance laboratory”, take the role of Big Brother and watch live footage from different CCTV cameras.
“This project provides a powerful lens for examining surveillance as one of the defining social phenomena of our time. It provokes pressing questions about the right to privacy in a hyper-monitored world,” Park Avenue Armory’s president Rebecca Robertson says.
Ai Weiwei has an innate understanding of how artificial environment affects the artistic vision. The artist and dissident also has his own experience of being constantly watched. Herzog and de Meuron will bring to the exhibition the theme of emotional interplay between the public and private domain. The artistic perception of the trio offers a comprehensive view of the issue that concerns everyone, whether we notice it or not in our everyday life.
The exhibition will run at Park Avenue Armory in New York from June 7 till August 6.
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