I had such a blast working in Central Park over the Labor Day weekend, it is hard to come out of the fairy tale land of my hands forest and hands field and into the real world /  by Mirena Rhee

Thanks to all of you and you, New York, I am hands down convinced that the virus hasn’t taken the spirit of this great city. I found the people and the place so very exciting, it has made my life a great and beautiful adventure and coupled with my other life where i somehow ended up going to the tallest buildings and most beautiful newly built buildings in New York city. … i am still riding high on elation. Thank you, New York, for being so very awesome - i can’t imagine my life, my art life and my experience as a human on earth without you in it. Some people never get to experience the magnificence of New York city because of the malls - but now that we are out of the malls - we have each other and this amazing place.

I met so many people, critters, insects, squirrels. i had a conversation with a little girl whether what i do is decorating.

Hmmm. I had to think a while and I decided an answer - a decoration is a small addition, an improvement to a thing. Art is a thing by itself, it has transformed the thing into a new thing.

Saturday

………………….

Saturday was such a strange day at the beginning I was at the bow Bridge in Central Park and the bow Bridge has not been lucky for me and my hands. then I met a photographer who was kind to me and I think turned things around.

Well I was at the bow bridge I played with the hands dropping them over the railing playing with shadow and reflection. But I was really confused, I felt like I'm working through molasses.

I had strewn some hands over at the lawn but they started blowing in the wind and I was afraid the sticks of the hands will hit somebody. It was basically like herding wild animals. Afterwards I told people that the hands grow like this in the wild and now it's just the season. I only herd them.

I was having a pretty disappointing day, I walked by Strawberry Fields and I saw a little pathway and decided to check it out and then I discovered this walkway which was sheltered from the wind.

It was like a forest path so decided to strew the Hands in there

All kinds of things happens to the hands in there. Bicycles Rode over them, dogs, people, critters, birds, squirrels

Everything happened really quickly and when things happen quickly there's very little hesitation so it all worked out in the end.

Someone run their BICYCLE Through the HANDS twice

Trust your feelings

Sunday

………………..

The most amazing labor day weekend - I only now realized I had dressed like the strawberry fields, pictures by Brian Clark - I got it!. I dressed by accident, and made the installation by accident.

Was walking past dejected when I saw a path and decided to toss the hands out of the bag.

An Installation with Giant Hands at the Strawberry Fields in Central Park - New York City created by Mirena Rhee over the Labor Day weekend. Photos by Brian Clark.

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Monday

art #installation in #CentralPark

On Monday I experimented with the pergola I have been eyeing for more than a year.. I had not come prepared and was a bit lazy and felt like just going with the music rather than focusing on the work. But the light was very beautiful and I will return to hang all 36.

Hands Field

Giant Hands in Central Park over the Labor Day Weekend - September 5, 6 and 7 2020 /  by Mirena Rhee

The Giant Hands are returning to Central Park over Labor Day Weekend - September 5, 6 and 7 2020, noon to 7 pm.

Come hold a Giant Hand over the Bow Bridge or fly it as a kite in Central Park.

I work in the park without permission and the Park authorities have interacted with me several times over taking down the installations.

I know you all love the Giant Hands and for most of you they represent the beauty and innocence of art which we need more than ever in our lives.

Amidst all the awful news around us, all of the deaths and destruction of lives - the Giant Hands represent all of us, they represent the struggles of Black Lives Matter, the struggles of all peoples of color, immigrants and the underprivileged, the right of all people to live free of pain and the right of all people to have beauty in their lives.

The mission of art and the Giant Hands is to continue to breathe color and beauty in our lives.

Giant Hands are not sanctioned by the Central park authorities and i often need to violate Central park rules to create. I work with the sense and purpose in a mission to enhance people’s lives with minimal destruction and intrusion.

I never destroy property and vegetation, the Giant Hands are designed to be light and with minimal effect on the environment. I have decided to collect trash from the areas I work in as a gesture of good will and peace offering to the Central Park authorities.

The Giant Hands are always draped and never fastened to trees or bridges, they are light paper objects with very minimal intrusion on their surrounding.

in light with the latest word from Central Park Conservancy - where I was asked and later threatened with a ticket and harassed multiple times by Park Authorities to take down the installation - I am asking for volunteers to hold the hands for a few minutes at a time. A symbolic gesture of peaceful resistance, the transformation of the Giant Hands from simply an installation - into a collective performance art work.

If you a free Labor Day Weekend even for a few minutes -

Come by Central Park and Fly a Giant Hand

Come by Central Park and Hold a Giant Hand over the Bow Bridge

Labor Day Weekend - September 5, 6 and 7 - Central Park - from noon to 8 pm.

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Giant Hands Over The Bridge - August 9th /  by Mirena Rhee

Giant Hands over the gothic bridge in Central Park, a public art installation, a part of the Giant Hands series of installations. Created by NYC based contemporary artist Mirena Rhee.

I decided to come back to the Gothic Bridge and hang all 36 hands, based on a suggestion from the audience and my personal feeling for the place and the bridge.

Awesome day with all 36 of the #GiantHands

This was the second weekend working on the Bridge. Created Sunday, August 9th. @centralparknyc I continue the tradition of @christojeanneclaude except I work quick, light and without permission - simply throw my body, my soul and my hands at it. Btw Christo was from a town in Bulgaria famous for their humor, and which is also my mom's home town - Gabrovo. There's a joke about people from the town that they're so stringy they take their shoes off to dance to the music from the neighboring town. …..

The best thing of the day yesterday was the audience, the audience is always an equal participant in the performances and installation work I do in New York.

I should probably confirm here that I do work without permission and walk a gray line. I always am respectful of the environment, the people and the institutions but I have to push it otherwise the work will never get created. My job is to create. The work no one else I'm sure will do. When I get up in the morning I come up with things to do that will make the world a better place. You can see it as work on behalf of humankind for the betterment of humankind. All this comes from a very strong background in traditional art, my drawings, paintings and commercial work as a Star Wars artist. I'm a drawer and a draftsmen, and a thinker first. Art is the greatest work of our civilization, when I draw and paint I create work that can be potentially relevant 500 years from now. That's why when I create very ephemeral projects I stand on firm ground. As a thinker, as a human and as an artist. Many of the institutions, artifacts and even buildings will no longer be here in the next decades, but my art and the ideas in it will still be around. I consider the material world to be a veil. Ideas are the true carriers of meaning. Our civilization is a material civilization however ideas recorded and developed over centuries are the one thing that has kept our civilization growing. My installations and performances are carriers of ideas, and participating in the common experience of humanity. I do not create art for the formal or decorative experiences of it although being a trained artist I do use my formal judgment to be efficient and to create beautiful work. I do want anyone who sees the work to enjoy it and to be glad it is there. All this gives me great confidence and I will do everything in my power to complete the works I have planned.

Photo by Alvaro Galeano - installation in progress of the #GiantHands over the Gothic Bridge in @centralparknyc

Photo by Alvaro Galeano - installation in progress of the #GiantHands over the Gothic Bridge in @centralparknyc

Due to popular demand I am planning Giant Hands Over The Bridge - All Hands On Deck for next Saturday - August 8th at the Gothic Bridge in Central Park /  by Mirena Rhee

Due to popular demand I am planning Giant Hands Over The Bridge - All Hands On Deck for next Saturday, August 8th at the Gothic Bridge in Central Park.

Free and open to the public ! We will see which way the wind is blowing and will hang the Hands accordingly.

Giant Hands fluttering in the dusk

The Artist with the Hands

Photo credit - Olga Nikolic Litwin

Giant Hands Over The Bridge /  by Mirena Rhee

Giant Hands over the Gothic Bridge in Central Park, a public art installation, a part of the Giant Hands series of installations.


Created by NYC based contemporary artist Mirena Rhee.

Giant Hands Over The Bridge was a very dynamic work and has been in my head as an abstract form for several years. I had previously tried various “over the bridge” hangings of hands but at the time I had very few hands made.

Giant Hands Over The Bridge was shifting all day as the weather constantly changed, and the wind and the audience were my partners in the work.  I worked all day around the bridge shifting the hands from under the bridge to over the bridge.

Making these installations is very surprising and exciting in that they are only an idea up the moment the hands hit the pavement. The moment the hands hit the pavement - all kinds of things happen - the hands have their own mind. I bend to the will of the hands - I think of what is the most logical way and most natural way to work with them and the space and the place - in this instance - the Gothic Bridge in Central Park.

I have been eyeing the Gothic Bridge in Central Park for a while now, and had been stalking it digitally staring at my phone at the pictures I took of it and the area around it and thinking of when the moment will come to work with it.

Often times working with the ( park, police, fire department, security, general public ) authorities becomes part of the work. Big thanks to the NYPD and the Park Conservancy who allowed me to work and gave me a thumbs up. I work without obtaining permits beforehand because of the ephemeral nature of the work and the very shifting weather, my time and the city we live in.

I worked all day moving hands around so there was not a quiet moment and there were no before and after pictures - first I stuffed them all under the bridge - then I started pulling them out and hanging them over one by one - making decisions in the moment and based on the wind patterns.

Liberty City /  by Mirena Rhee

Happy Fourth of July, a tribute and a love for my country which is not my birth country but my home and my place which I love with all my heart -in fact America and I was a love at first sight. I know many Americans want to leave and there are many problems in our place but trust me on this one - liberty is hard to do and so many people died for it over the centuries and now we take our liberties for granted.

Guard your liberty with all you have got.

Download hi-res here https://bit.ly/StatueCity

The Life of a Great City - One New York - Giant Hands on Times Square /  by Mirena Rhee

#GiantHands on #timessquare in #NewYorkCity.

The city I love is pretty strange right now, and I have to admit for the past month I've had a little bit of PTSD and I have been working through it slowly. I'm a very sensitive person, one of those that takes absolutely everything from their environment but that's exactly how I work. I take everything from the environment and work with it, and we, collectively, create something new - my drawings, installations and performances, even things that I do completely on my own, are always part of a collective work, the people, the places and the energy that swirls around it.

Every performance I make, every installation in a public space becomes an ecosystem /  by Mirena Rhee

Every performance I make, every installation in a public space becomes an ecosystem with characters and flow. Often times the NYPD comes, the bomb squad comes especially if there is a large bag with strange things in it, the security people usually come to chat and often help, the events people, visitors, locals and performers we all join in the life of the city.

The #hands have become an artifact of (life in) #NewYorkCity, they were made in #Manhattan and dragged through streets, trains, subways, parks and squares.

#GiantHands for #OneNewYork on #timessquare

One New York - Performance and Installation with Giant Hands on Times Square in New York City created in May 2020 /  by Mirena Rhee

In the Hands is encoded our entire civilization. The first Art ever was a hand print on the wall of a cave. The Hands have also encoded the greatest of human art, as in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.