At a Glance: The Stand of the Phoenix

Things Discussed: Cathedrals; Phoenixes; Xu Bing; St. John the Divine; Uptown Manhattan; Jim Woodring; Frank.

written by f



I saw them and photographed them on February 28, and they still weren't fully accessible to the public. But the two phoenixes by Xu Bing surely made for an impressive view.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in all its massive space, is an active church, open to anyone and well worth visiting in its own right.

The two giant phoenixes by Xu Bing, on the other hand, were still being checked for safety reasons.



The way I see it, a few last tweaks were being made. But they were already pretty outstanding floating up there.



If you are in New York, please go see Xu Bing's installation. You can read about it in this New York Times article, on the Cathedral's official website, and see this beautiful video on vimeo.

As I wouldn't be able to give a better description than this, this is The New York Times: 

As these phoenixes hovered some 20 feet above, their tiny, twinkling lights illuminated an array of unexpected materials: feathers fashioned from impeccably layered shovels; crowns made of weathered hard hats; heads created from jackhammers; and birds’ bodies sculpted from other salvaged construction debris, including pliers, saws, screwdrivers, plastic accordion tubing and drills.

It really is an impressive sight. Although it does bear a resemblance to what Jim Woodring's Frank would find in his explorations

As for Bishops&Queens, this is what I myself saw that day (please note that I wasn't able to upload pictures the usual way, so that, to view them larger, you'd have to open each of them on a different tab):