Park update: From 7am – 3:30pm on Monday, March 18 and Tuesday, March 19, the High Line will be partially closed between 23rd and 30th Streets due to construction. Visitors can enter and exit at the 23rd Street stair/elevator and the 30th/10th Street stair. The entrances from Hudson Yards, the Connector, and the Spur remain open.

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Photo by Liz Ligon

Pablo Bronstein

Intermezzo: Two girls wear fashion garments on a palm tree

September 2013 – September 2013
Location

On the High Line under The Standard at Little West 12th Street

September 19, 2013
7:00 PM

With his irreverent tableaux in which sculpture, drawing, and performance are combined, London-based artist Pablo Bronstein has been exploring the history of architecture as a projection of human fantasies and desires. Bronstein’s choreographic pastiches reference a wide range of styles and aesthetics, mixing Neo-classicism and Postmodernism, Baroque and camp, while his meticulously detailed ink drawings compose a vast repertoire of ornaments, decorations, and other architectural guilty pleasures.

For the High Line, Bronstein has conceived a new performance piece titled Intermezzo: Two girls wear fashion garments on a palm tree. Installed on the High Line as an incongruous presence, a tall palm tree functions as the fulcrum of the performance in which two ballet dancers – dressed in fancy gowns – will climb to the top of the tree with the help of a scissor lift. The performance will begin with two dancers promenading one after the other along the High Line, each performing different dances to different music. The performance will end at the top of the palm tree, where the dancers will dance in unison. As a contemporary urban folly, Bronstein’s incursion on the High Line momentarily turns the park into a Felliniesque carnival, a surreal parade which plays with two of the main features of the park, its vegetation and the irresistible fascination of people-watching.

Photos by Liz Ligon.

Artist bio

Pablo Bronstein (b. 1977, Argentina) lives and works in London. Bronstein produces work in a variety of media, including drawing, installation, film, and performance, and defies stylistic categorization through his investigation of various historical periods and tastes. A key theme in his work involves the engagement of architecture in order to unveil underlying mechanisms that delineate public and private space and identity, a preoccupation inherent both in his meticulous architectural drawings and his performance works. Recent performances include the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); and the Tate Modern, London (2012). Recent solo exhibitions include the Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2013); Library of the Museum of Decorative Arts, Paris (2013); Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2011); the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2011); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2009). Recent group exhibitions include Liprandi, Buenos Aires (2012); SALT, Istanbul (2012); and the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2011).


Support

High Line Art is presented by Friends of the High Line and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. High Line Art is made possible by Donald R. Mullen, Jr. and The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, with additional support from Vital Projects Fund, Inc. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.