How does this artwork elucidate its History?
The work was inspired by the 1975 intervention installation work titled Days End, Conical Intersect by the American 20th-century artist Gordon Matta-Clark. In the original installation, Matta-Clark created five large incisions into the Pier 52 shed, which had formerly occupied the site and measured 373 feet in length and 50 feet in height. The purpose of Matta-Clark's work was to "let in light that would change during days and seasons", which he saw as “a peaceful enclosure”. The artist also described it as a "renovation" of a "decaying sad reminder of a previous industrial era".The contemporary work by Hammons was announced by the Whitney Museum in 2017 and completed in 2021. It is made made of stainless steel tubes and precast concrete and consists of an open structure that adheres to the dimensions, proportions, and placement of the previous shed. The director of the Whitney Adam D. Weinberg called the installation a "hybrid" which incorporated "architecture, sculpture, drawing, site-specific project, land art, appropriated object, and none of the above".
Gordon Matta-Clark Whitney Museum Adam D. Weinberg precast concrete stainless steel Pier