Tag Archives: interactive

Brooklyn Revisits 1970s Ruckus Manhattan

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Just before the US Bicentennial in 1976, a city rose inside 88 Pine Street in downtown Manhattan – Creative Time’s first public art project. It was a crazy, hilarious, participatory comic papier-mâché labrynth that was dreamed up by a beloved Pop Art power couple – Red Grooms and Mimi Gross – that was a love letter to New York City.

Their cartoon Manhattan had everything – Times Square, the World Trade Center, the Staten Island Ferry, Wall Street, and even a subway car on springs you could enter and bounce around in amid life-sized papier-mâché and soft-sculpted passengers.  

Publicity and photos from the 1976 installation of Ruckus Manhattan at Marlborough Gallery on 57th Street.

Within the 6,400-square-foot area, you could walk through big brightly painted, silly constructions to experience all the sights, sounds, and crazy characters everyone observes and bumps into on New York City streets.  It was sensational (drawing 50,000 visitors) and people came back over and over to catch things they didn’t notice the first time.

Film still from Ruckus Manhattan documentary by Red Grooms and Mimi Gross, showing Red Grooms at work on the Woolworth Building for the 1975 installation at 88 Pine Street, Financial District.

The Brooklyn Museum has pulled parts of this beloved art installation out of storage for the first time in 30 years for its exhibition, Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, and The Ruckus Construction Co.: Excerpts from ‘Ruckus Manhattan’, on view through June 5, 2026. Take a look in our Flickr album.

The major part of the first-floor installation depicts the blue waters of New York Harbor (an undulating, draped blue plastic sheet) and a big, cartoon-like Staten Island Ferry – Dame of the Narrows – pulling into its berth at the terminal. The yellow ferry boat is packed with picture-taking tourists, commuters, vehicles, and (as usual) a few passengers and a motorcyclist poised at the edge of the lower deck, waiting for the bump against the landing and the hinged gate release before scooting ashore.

Dame of the Narrows, a 1975 installation by Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, and their collaborators known as the Ruckus Construction Company; here, a cartoon version of the Staten Island Ferry is about to arrive at the dock. 

A seagull sits atop the vertical wooden pillars that line the terminal approach. It’s the same as you’ve witnessed a thousand times in real life. Funny how the harbor smells, humidity, and seagull sounds pop into your head, making you feel as if you’re really there.  

Cartoon seagull looks for a meal atop the timbers lining the Manhattan dock for the Staten Island Ferry; 1975 installation from Ruckus Manhattan.
View of the lifeboat and underwater life beneath the cartoon Staten Island Ferry Dame of the Narrows, 1975 installation from Ruckus Manhattan.

Like the rest of the larger Ruckus Manhattan, this harbor installation was created from Red’s sketches of the ferry people, architecture, and technology by a crew of around 40 other members of his team – the Ruckus Construction Company. It was a joyous mix of painters, sculptors, puppet makers, performance artists, and kids, all on view through the plate glass windows of 88 Pine Street in the Financial District, bringing the buildings and neighborhoods of Manhattan to life.

Centerfold of The Daily Ruckus comic newspaper created in lieu of an exhibition catalog; November 1975 issue includes pictures and bios of the installation artists.

Surrounding it all are two long painted murals from 1992, featuring landmarks across the waters – the skyscrapers of Jersey City above Journal Square, the looming cranes of the container shipping port, and the Verazzano Narrows Bridge is shoved in there, too, right at the edge.

Video of Design for Staren Island Ferry – enlargement of a 1992 watercolor and drawing by Red Grooms.

After Ruckus Manhattan closed downtown in 1975, the entire kit and kaboodle moved uptown to Marlborough Gallery on 57th Street in 1976.  Nearly 100,000 people came to see it in Midtown, as did Jackie O. In 1977, Dame of the Narrows was presented to the Brooklyn Museum by the newly formed Citizens Committee for New York City, which began community initiatives to help the City rise up after its devastating fiscal crisis.

Brooklyn has a nice collection of ephemera that it’s put on display in an adjacent gallery that runs Red and Mimi’s Ruckus Manhattan documentary. Here’s a clip with Red and Mimi:

Visitors can take a minute and see photos of the full-scale installation, a brochure for a 1993 installation at Grand Central Terminal, and The Daily Ruckus newspaper handed out at the 88 Pine Street opening.

Video showing the exterior of the 42nd Street Porno Bookstore and a leather-clad passerby, a 1976 installation for Ruckus Manhattan.

For visitors who want to see what Times Square was like before it was renovated into a more family-friendly environment, the museum has installed another Ruckus component (not as family friendly…be warned!).  Around the corner (hidden from the ferry installation), you’re greeted by a seedy façade and live-sized leather-clad lurker. Welcome to the 42nd Street Porno Bookstore!  Inside, you can peruse goofy magazine covers that spoof Times Square’s dicey past alongside a satirical peep show and another sketchy lurker. 

Thanks to the Ruckus team for its creation, to Alex Katz for donating the Bookstore, and to Brooklyn Museum for this walk down Memory Lane and its preservation of one of New York’s best-loved art extravaganzas!

Film still from Ruckus Manhattan documentary by Red Grooms and Mimi Gross, showing Red Grooms at work the 1975 installation at 88 Pine.

Light, Space and Time in Albuquerque

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Drift into another dimension in Light, Space, and the Shape of Time at the Albuquerque Museum through July 20, 2025. The show, with significant works from the museum’s own collection, harkens back to the founders of California’s 1960s Light and Space movement, but also presents work by contemporary artists – many from New Mexico – who continue to explore the same phenomenon.

The curators have arranged the exhibition to show how artists use light, space, and time as subjects through which visitors can slow down, contemplate, and experience.

Detail of Soo Sunny Park’s 2013 Unwoven Light, an installation that seems to move as visitors walk through it. Courtesy: the artist

For more, see some of our favorites works in our Flickr album.

The first section showcases works where artists use light as the primary medium. Visitors can enjoy works by some of the most famous innovators from the Sixties and Seventies – Robert Irwin, who inspired a generation of West Coast art students to think differently; Dan Flavin, who merged minimalism with industrial light; and Helen Pashgian, who makes magic from luminous resins.

Irwin’s 2011 piece appears minimal, but his six fluorescent-light colors can be activated in four different variations, and he associated each with agricultural colors of Southern California. You can enjoy looking at Lucky You for its purity of form, or contemplate Irwin’s recollections of home.

Two fluorescent works by Space and Light superstars – Robert Irwin’s 2011 Lucky You and Dan Flavin’s 1987 untitled (in honor of Leo at the 30th anniversary of his gallery. Courtesy: Thoma Foundation

Behind the black curtain, you can enter a tranquility chamber. Helen Pashgian’s 2021 installation provides an unforgettable experience to visitors to slow down and wait. What are you seeing? The frosted, peach-colored epoxy sculpture at center stage appears dissolve in the light-filled space as lights slowly change. It’s like watching show changes to the sky during a dramatic sunset, but it’s light, white, ethereal, and pure.

Helen Pashgian’s 2021 untitled (peach lens) – the lens dissolve into space as the light changes to sunrise and sunset modes. Courtesy: Tia Collection

All-star word artist Jenny Holtzer’s Red Tilt takes an absolutely maximalist approach with multiple LED displays – a too-much, all-at-once, never-stopping tsunami of emotional words from her own story about survival and trauma.

Leo Villareal’s piece Scramble is the opposite. Albuquerque-bassed Villareal creates a mesmerizing, tranquil, never-repeating abstraction by programming LED lights. He’s done this on a larger scale in his epic commissions to light the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and all of London’s bridges over the Thames. Here, visitors get a more intimate experience – slowing down to watch Scramble’s gently changing colors and know what they’re seeing is unique to the moment.

Jenny Holtzer’s 2002 LED display, Red Tilt. Courtesy: Thoma Foundation
Leo Villareal’s 2011 Scramble, a programmed LED artwork that changes constantly. Courtesy: Thoma Foundation

Larry Bell’s 1984 installation is the centerpiece of exhibition’s exploration of how artists use light, illusion, and technology to explore (and play with) our perceptions of space. Direct from his retrospective in Phoenix, Bell’s barely-there The Cat is a delicate but monumental presence in the show.  Huge, planes of coated and non-coated glass require a circumnavigation. Moving around, you can see how works are reflected and how some opaque surfaces block views of others.

Larry Bell’s 1984 The Cat – rectangles of coated and uncoated float glass.

Two nearby works by Santa Fe-based August Muth offer visitors a more intimate experience. Muth uses a holographic etching technique in which he creates the illusion of a “floating” image.

August Muth’s 2024 holographic etching Shadow Within Light. Courtesy: Pie Projects Contemporary Art.
August Muth’s 2022 holographic etching Terra Solaris. Courtesy: Pie Projects Contemporary Art.

The exhibition concludes with a magnificent installation by Soo Sunny Park – an installation of lights and plexiglass pieces that appear to move as you move through. Take a peek in this video.

Detail of Soo Sunny Park’s 2013 Unwoven Light installation with tiles that appear to move as the visitor moves through it. Courtesy: the artist

Kite Dreams with AI at IAIA

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How does a Lakȟóta artist link dreams and artificial intelligence to imagine futures for her people? Experience five years of innovative installations in Kite and Wíhaŋble S’a Center: Dreaming with AI, on view at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe through July 13, 2025.

The IAIA exhibition – Suzanne Kite’s third solo exhibition this year across the United States – presents several installations that highlight her collaborative work that merges cutting-edge technology with Indigenous knowledge systems. 

Download the exhibition catalogue here, and look at photos of the installation in our Flickr album.

2023 Wičhíŋčala Šakówiŋ (Seven Little Girls) and Wicháhpi Wóihanbleya (Dreamlike Star) use stones to translate Kite’s dreams into Lakhóta symbols.

In Iron Road and Dreamlike Star, stones and minerals (the building blocks of computers!) are arranged in Lakȟóta geometric language that suggest Lakȟóta quilt patterns. They’re placed atop a mirror to show resonance between the Earth and the cosmos (stars).

2023 Wicháhpi Wóihanbleya (Dreamlike Star) suggest that ancestor stars can point the way to Indigenous futures.

In this first section, inputs are taken from Kite’s dreams. Using AI, her dreams are translated into geometric Lakȟóta shapes created by designer Sadie Red Wing. Kite has figured out a way to bypass large-scale, commercial AI networks in favor of an AI model (run on her PC) that aligns more closely with Indigenous knowledge systems.    

A digital embroidery machine has yards of embroidered black velvet flowing out of it.  Oihanke Wanica (Infinity) is a collaboration with New York City’s Center for Art, Research and Alliances. As you examine the velvet, you’ll find geometric Lakȟóta shapes translated (using AI) from Kite’s dreams.

Nearby, there’s a comfortable lounge where you can watch Cosmologyscape, an interactive digital quilt – a public art project in which AI translates the public’s dreams into artist-created geometric symbols. It’s a collaboration with Alisha B. Wormsley, so the virtual community quilt manifests both African-American and Lakȟóta shapes.

2023 Oihanke Wanica (Infinity) – a digital embroidery machine stitches symbols representing dreams onto black velvet. Collaborator; Center for Art, Research and Alliances.
Lounge to watch Kite and Alisha B. Wormsley’s 2024 Cosmologyscape – Ai translates the public’s dreams into symbols for an ever-expanding digital quilt.

Installations in the other half of the exhibition shows collaborative projects that combine Indigenous knowledge systems and AI. Along one wall in the spectacular, tranquil gallery, you can explore a print and digital resource library on international research programs that integrate Indigenous knowledge systems into AI design.

Abundant Intelligences – a library and digital resource station for information on AI and futurism in contemporary Indigenous art.

Oneiris is a large interactive station through which visitors are invited to generate dream symbols that AI adds into a wall-sized display that looks like a portal to the cosmos. Inspired by the Lakȟóta concept of a Dream Language, she and her many technical collaborators genuinely bring dreams to life.

Oneiris – a collaborative project using advanced AI models to allow visitors to bring dreams to life.

Spashed across the final wall of the space, The Land Paints Itself is a video collaboration with her Wíhaŋble S’a Center for Indigenous AI at Bard – a lab that explores Indigenous advances in this science and art. Watch as AI generates dazzling colors and patterns as four Lakȟóta dream about Indigenous futures. Kite suggests that the evolving technology of dreams is a legitimate way for her nation to envision ways forward.

2025 The Land Paints Itself video that uses AI to illustrate Lakhóta people’s dreams about Indigenous futures.

Provocative, visionary, and affirmative – meet Kite herself in an interview with Artforum editor Tina Rivers Ryan in March 2025, when Kite’s work was featured on the cover.