What is the South Cove?

What is the South Cove?

Battery Park public art  

The name of this public artwork is called “South Cove.” The name, South Cove, originates from the art piece being placed in the south of Battery Park as well as the city itself and it is a bay area that feels separated from the city. The stairs part of the South Cove is made of metal that leads to nowhere but to give a elevated view. The landscape of the artwork cycles from land to water. No matter where you are you can get a clear view of Jersey city. The piece includes natural materials, plantings, constructed elements, the water and sky themselves were combined to create a beautiful and very moving environment.

South Cove was designed by three artists. Mary Miss, the main artist, is an environmental artist that studied at the University of California. There she megered her passion of sculpting, landscaping, and architecture into a career in the mid-1960s. In 1988, She decided to collaborate with architect Stanton Eckstut and landscape architect Susan Child to construct the South Cove project. This project was most important to Miss because “the Battery Park City Fine Arts Commission chose Miss to be the artist in a project team for South Cove.”[1] The president and chief executive officer of Battery Park City Authority, Meyer Frucher, along with the advisory of the fine-arts project committee were the ones to make the decision that Mary Miss will be the main artist of the South Cove project.

The purpose and function of this art piece was to successfully replicate the mood of the surrounding area while still allowing for a unique experience. The artist peeled away the covering of the platform in order to expose the beams. Mary Miss wanted to do this to reveal the infrastructure that was supporting this fake land. She wanted to “give people of the city a sense of their connection to the natural world”. Mary said that the project of South Cove “begun as a shotgun marriage”.[2] She wanted to focus on the primary that is found within the public space, South Cove.

That is South Cove intended function as a project that is suppose to feel unique and give people an experience that would not normally be had in the City. South Cove feels isolated from the city once you step foot within it. It is such a remote part of the city and tends to attract a young audience, mostly young adults. South Cove makes you feel like you have privacy in a public space, this is noticed mostly by the plants that grow so tall that it is like you are being sheltered from the city, hence why it feels isolated.

South Cove provides viable seating for the park goers to take their time to rest. The seating on the South Cove is facing the waters under what it seems to be pergola style overhead. The seating doesn’t have backs to it for it is intended for people to relax there for a short period of time. Lighting of the South Cove is all natural by the sun during the day. By night there are nice soft light lamps that makes it feel like the moon light is shining on the South Cove. However, the South Cove isn’t enclosed in a visually provocative way.

South Cove attracts a younger audience overall, however it also is lovely place that it almost feels romantic. People even go so far as to use it as a landmark to meet. In addition, people use the stairs of the South Cove to experience more of the artwork. Also people have been seen using it as part of their gym running exercise routine around the stairs. Tourist who come to see this project find it the most attractive and interactive public art project in the city.

All in all, Marry Miss and her collaborators deigned South Cove as a beautiful public art made with a utilitarian value. One might argue that South Cove is not an a public art piece but a urban design due to the fact that South Cove is not a piece of art in the public such as a sculpture or monument. According to Knight’s book “Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism, “‘public art’ had little to do with the public, art’s functionality gained a renewed emphasis, with street furniture becoming stranded public art fare. The furniture placed in city streets and neighborhood parks may frequently go unacknowledged by its users as ‘art,’ but this circumstance was acceptable to the artist.”[3] However, to both Jonathan and I think that this was a successful work of public art because we believe that with landscape elements, to the seating and the metal staircase as a whole makes entire site South Cove into a single form of public art.

   

[1] Miss, Mary, and Daniel M. Abramson. Mary Miss. New York (N.Y.): Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.

[2] "CultureNOW - South Cove: Susan Child, Stanton Eckstut, Mary Miss and Battery Park City Parks Conservancy." CultureNOW - MuseumWithoutWalls. Accessed September 13, 2018. https://www.culturenow.org/index.php?page=entry&permalink=03720&seo=South-Cove_Susan-Child-Stanton-Eckstut-Mary-Miss-and-Battery-Park-City-Parks-Conservancy.

[3] Knight, Cher Krause. Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2009.