Gallery Crawl: DON’T MISS IT: Kate Gilmore’s “Walk the Walk” in Bryant Park

By: Justin Wolf

This past Monday I was sitting alone in Bryant Park, looking at Kate Gilmore’s latest performance-installation piece, Walk the Walk. A gentleman approached me. “Kind of repetitive?” he said. I gathered from his tone that this was meant as a slight.

“It is,” I responded, “but I think that’s the point.”

The park’s grounds were bathed in ample afternoon sunlight, but the hundreds who milled about all braced themselves against the unseasonably brisk winds running through. Most folks were there because it was just another stop in their usual routine, but on this day something kept them milling.

View of Bryant Park. Photo by Justin Wolf.

Walk the Walk will run for just a single week. And yes, while repetition is in its lifeblood, the work’s confluence of color, movement and sound create a hypnotic effect, inviting viewers to ponder their own repetitions.

Partnering with New York’s Public Art Fund, under the direction of Nicholas Baume, Gilmore has erected an 8-foot tall, canary-yellow cubic structure, situated at the park’s entrance at 41^st Street and 6^th Avenue. Atop this box are seven women, all wearing identical yellow dresses and beige pumps, who walk to and fro across the confined space, navigating on instinct. On occasion, they individually take moments to stomp their feet, adjust a shoulder strap, and stretch their arms, but their movement is ceaseless. Maintaining a stoic gaze that no element could disturb, the women who walk the walk do so with uninterrupted purpose, in spite of their given environment, which in many ways is just one giant interruption. But the tensions that are surely present for these women, who do their best to stay on pace, don’t bleed over into the park and its visitors. This is due in large part to the structure itself.

Kate Gilmore, Installation View of Walk the Walk. Photo by Justin Wolf.

There’s a scene in the new Broadway play Red in which Alfred Molina’s Mark Rothko, standing before an incomplete canvas, asks his assistant Ken, “What do you see?” Ken assumes his stance and looks; he moves closer. Rothko asks again.

“Give me a minute,” Ken responds, trying to ward off his employer’s impatience. After a few moments, he simply says, “I see red.” Rothko is displeased with this unimaginative concession. But that answer, however true or untrue to history it may be, is not unimaginative—it’s truthful. When I first looked at Walk the Walk, I saw yellow. Yellow is the work’s most striking feature; yellow is new and fresh and even frivolous. Yellow wants to be noticed. Gilmore knew exactly what she was doing with this color, because the yellow that envelops her work keeps you looking, and looking.

After about 45 minutes in the park, taking in the work from different vantage points and conversing with the skeptical gentleman, I left and began walking south along 6^th Ave. It was then that I realized Walk the Walk was simply one piece of a much, much larger exhibition.

Detail from Walk the Walk. Photo by Justin Wolf.

Passing through Herald Square, navigating the Broadway/6^th Ave. intersection and dodging dozens of pedestrians along my route, I was struck by the convergence of repetition and randomness. Within the first 10 minutes of my walk, there were no less than four Starbucks, two Pax Wholefoods stores, and three banks with employees out front offering this if you sign up for that, clipboards at the ready. All the while I had to ensure my footing: eyes forward, legs loose, waist on a swivel. Walking in Manhattan requires these tools, because sooner or later, someone’s going to get in your way, stop on a dime, piss you off. Walk with purpose, yes, but be prepared to change course when the moment requires it.

Manhattan itself is both fickle and dependable. The island’s life comes from its inhabitants’ flights of fancy, yet it is built on a foundation of routine and repetition. The myriad and complex grids, from the subways to street level and into the office, all laid out to dictate a series of clear paths and sharp turns, are the most immediate thing New Yorkers have to compromising free will on a daily basis. The routine is safe, the repetition is a comfort. It’s only when we deviate from it that things are allowed to get interesting. But when we have places to go and people to see, who has time for all that?

When I walked away from Walk the Walk, I wasn’t left with any image or color or individual performer in mind. Instead, it occurred to me that I was another player in a city-wide pedestrian joust, albeit with a little more space in which to play. Kate Gilmore has cut a block out of the city, painted it, quarantined it, and given it a finite life span. But it is very much alive, and it is very much us. To the casual observer, we’re all identical, our movements all mirror one another’s to a degree, and where we’re headed is pretty much where we just came from.

“Walk the Walk” runs through May 14^th

Located at the Fountain Terrace in Bryant Park

Enter through the park’s West entrance at 6^th Ave. & 41^st St.

Take the B, D, F or V to 42^nd St./Bryant Park or the 7 to 5^th Ave./Bryant Park

Open to the public: 8:30am – 6:30pm

Project website: www.publicartfund.org/kategilmore/

Artist website: www.kategilmore.com/