The relentless weather has taken on a surreal quality for Coco. She feels disoriented, and can no longer tell which end is up.
Or perhaps she’s just visiting the M. C. Escher exhibit at Industry City.
It feels like an appropriate thing to do on a day when the streets of NYC shimmer with heat and people seem to be swimming through the heavy air.
At the Escher exhibit, you can be part of Escher’s peculiar world. You can be the center of a universe held in someone’s hand.
You can be in a picture within a picture within a picture within a picture within a picture within a picture within a picture
You can sit on a . . . thingy.
Is it a vase? Two profiles? Or the side view of a stitch face?
Fish turn into birds turn into fish.
Coco is dizzy.
It’s almost a relief to step out into the oven-like courtyard.
Reality, even sweltering reality, can be grounding.
But wait. Isn’t this grass preternaturally green?
Astroturf!
Honestly, I can’t remember the provenance of the brown fabric from which Coco is made. I’m losing it, sorry. I do know that her Escher-appropriate striped dress is made from a pair of my son’s pajama bottoms, and her whale bag is made from a necktie of my husband’s. Her shoes are foam tray with blue cord, and her sparkly bracelet is from the trove of old jewelry from Ellen.
In my prints I try to show that we live in a beautiful and orderly world and not in a chaos without norms, as we sometimes seem to. My subjects are also often playful. I cannot help mocking all our unwavering certainties.
—M. C. Escher
Special thanks to Deirdre.
Oh my, Coco in the center of the universe is such an interesting point of view during this dreadfully hot summer.
I think it must be cooler in the center of the universe.
The M.C. Escher exhibit is strangely interesting, and , I guess, intentionally disorienting. Something remotely akin to Alice in Wonderland? Coco’s dress is cut fashionably and , of course, diagonally , into a side-tie? and bias-cut swirly skirt? Blue echoed in her shoe cords. I never heard of this exhibit before and wonder if it has yet reached mainstream NYCers. If I were a NYCer I would definitely go some unbearably hot or cold day. Wanda Paik
The exhibit is interesting, and the interactive parts make it fun! Part of the exhibit also shows the effect Escher’s work has had on our popular culture, from graphic design to film. In addition, Industry City is a great venue to visit in Brooklyn.