Budget:
24 x 36 inch piece of 3/4 inch plywood - found
24 x 36 inch piece of 3/16 inch plywood - $4.19
8 oz. can paint, blue - $5.99
8 oz. can paint, yellow - $5.99
3 stainless steel screw eyes, #8 - $2.07
Total: $18.24
Project: Landscape View no. 40 (my Olana)
Location: 42-10 Vernon Blvd., Long Island City, Queens, NY
Date: 5/7/2007 - 5/27/2007
Statement:
I have chosen the property at 42-10 Vernon Blvd., the Terra Cotta Building, as the site for my project proposal. This building appears as a house in an overwhelming setting of a power plant, the Queensborough Bridge and a mountainous skyscraper landscape across the East River. In 2001 I was thinking a lot about urban wilderness, possibilities for sublime feelings in the most human of landscapes. I imagined the Terra Cotta building and its immediate landscape as an estate amidst a wilderness, not unlike those of the Hudson Valley-such as the historically designated Olana, near Hudson, New York. My current proposal for ltd. grows out of these earlier thoughts.
My artwork in this context comprises of a sign taking the form of a New York State historical marker, gold and blue in color. The text will read “Site of a sublime landscape view”. The size will be 24 inches by 36 inches with a depth of less than an inch. As with the traditional historic markers, it will be noticed by slow-moving vehicles and pedestrians.
My focus is the landscape, our abstract relationship to it, the invention and convention of it. New York State historical markers, of which there are hundreds, cast light onto events and locations, offer simple narratives, and dispense cultural legacy through signage across the landscape. There is very little oversight in the creation and placement of these markers, yet they carry the weight of official history. I am interested in using the authority of the sign to re-designate our cultural legacy, to remove it from the canonized, historical landscape, and reposition our point of view.
Bio:
As a landscape painter Meuschke has employed a painterly realism in depicting locations that he has experienced, desired to know intimately, but often feels disconnected from. His work explores this experience as he re-envisions landscape painting by revising its’ conventions. Complementing this body of painting, he has created site-related, temporary sculptures that investigate and re-interpret our domestic and cultural landscape. His sculpture utilizing a plant-filled greenhouse at Socrates Sculpture Park, for example, questioned whether the public should be locked out of “managed” landscapes. Other projects include a revision of a lover’s swing and a containerized landscape returned to “nature.”
Meuschke received his M.F.A. in Painting, minor in Landscape Design from New Mexico State University. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Henry Street Settlement Artist in Residence program and will be attending MacDowell Colony this summer. His work has been exhibited nationally.
Sheehan Saldaña, Zoë
Meuschke, Frank
Antebi, Nicole