Josiah McElheny: Yard (Junkyard), 1961/2009

September 23 - October 04, 2009

YARD, 1961   ALLAN KAPROW

Yard (Junkyard), photo credit Leigh Davis

Yard (Junkyard) is a ten-day event at the Queens Museum of Art, an attempt at re-inventing the ethos of Allan Kaprow’s Yard, in particular the first variant of the work, from 1961.

Josiah McElheny

“My version is a massive projection of a panoramic aerial photograph depicting a unique site in New York: the so-called ‘Iron Triangle’ in Queens (also known as Willets Point). This neighborhood consists mostly of junkyards, wrecking yards, tire yards, and auto repair workshops and is currently a focal point for controversy and dispute about urban planning. The 90 by 30 foot (2700 sq. ft.) still image is assembled from multiple photographs, shot in a surveillance-like manner from a helicopter. It is displayed on a large wall that encloses the Queens Museum’s famous ‘Panorama,’ a scale model of all five boroughs of New York City. Within the picture, we see the southern part of this seven block long industrial area; this isolated section of the city abuts the new Mets baseball stadium, as well as Flushing Meadows Corona Park where the Queens Museum is located.

The ‘Iron Triangle’ will soon disappear due to a contested, city-run redevelopment project. Here it is shown to be an unplanned world, where skilled labor and accumulated industrial products coalesce to produce a complex zone of both pollution and recycling.”
-Josiah McElheny

Yard (Junkyard), photo credit Leigh Davis

Josiah McElheny’s Yard (Junkyard) is one of three reinventions of Allan Kaprow’s YARD (1961), organized by Helen Molesworth, Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museums, working in close collaboration with the Estate of Allan Kaprow and Hauser & Wirth New York. The exhibition Allan Kaprow YARD is on view from September 23 – October 24 at Hauser & Wirth New York located at 32 East 69th Street, New York NY 10021. www.hauserwirth.com