Artlantic in the City

Art

Atlantic City bets on new art initiative, ARTLANTIC

Until a few weeks ago, the most visible public art in Atlantic City was an elephant-shaped building and pair of water towers, one shaped like a hot air balloon, the other muraled with brightly colored fish. But on a recent cold and cloudy spring morning, the land-art artist Peter Hutchinson was standing in an undeveloped lot a few hundred feet from the beach, swinging his signature sisal ropes above his head—part of the grand plan to change that.

Hutchinson is one of 20 artists chosen by the curator Lance Fung to participate in Artlantic: wonder, an outdoor public art project which will take root in six of the city’s many empty lots in the next five years. It’s funded by the year-old Atlantic City Alliance, a non-profit created by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, tasked with reinventing Atlantic City as a family-friendly and cultural destination. Hobbled by the recession and the wildfire-like spread of online gaming that gutted its monopoly, Atlantic City needs new attractions to draw visitors. Rather than being sequestered in the casinos, they actually need to venture outside.

This will be Fung’s great challenge, to make these structures seem relevant to visitors and residents alike—to make it feel like something Atlantic City needs.

Hutchinson stood on what will be the test sight of that new vision, among already-installed works by Robert Barry (sod-covered mounds, reading a bit like a landfill, with 20 two-foot-tall words—“almost,” “continue” and “unknown” among them—in all caps feathered around them); Kiki Smith (a charcoal-colored bronze sculpture of a woman cradling a doe, set in a winding garden of all red foliage); and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, who’ve created Devil’s Rage, a 71-foot-long cedar pirate ship, half sunk into the ground. Soon, the work of two local New Jersey artists, Robert Lach and Jedediah Morfit, will join the space.

Sculpture in bronze by Kiki Smith.

Devil’s Rage, a 71-foot-long cedar pirate ship sunk halfway into the ground by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov

A Robert Barry installation.

Hutchinson’s submission was an instant garden, to be planted following the random path in which his rope fell. The first time, he wound it above his head and whipped it to the ground, but it landed in a lump. The second time he accidentally let go of the other end, and it flew into a pile on top of some already planted Knock Out rose bushes. The third time, it unfurled into a gracious snaking curve. His assistant spray-painted the shape of the rope’s line, then placed a series of spirea and barberry shrubs along it. A team of landscapers wielded an enormous bulb drill to cut deep holes in the ground, plopped in the plants and, voila: public art. Hutchinson completed eight pieces that day. It’s just the kind of instant gratification visitors to Atlantic City are always hoping for.

The payoff, though, will likely take a long time to come, both in terms of local appreciation for the project and the cultural tourism they hope it will foment. The art has a discomfiting and perhaps unintentional resonance with the state of the city—a sunken ship, landfill, a randomly developed landscape (try driving from one awkwardly placed fortress of a casino to another; it ain’t easy). While it’s ambitious, strange and visually stunning, it also feels like an encapsulation of the city’s struggles, adding another layer to the mishmash of sad urban fabric: pawn shops and faded architectural beauties, glittering but underutilized skyscrapers and empty lots. 

Two teenagers sitting on a bench as journalists and college students followed Hutchinson around were skeptical about Artlantic’s potential to reinvent the city. “What’s the point of making a hill with words on it and half of a Noah’s Ark?” asked one. “They should have made a park.”

“Yeah,” said the other. “We need those.” They didn’t realize they were sitting in one.

This will be Fung’s great challenge, to make these structures seem relevant to visitors and residents alike—to make it feel like something Atlantic City needs. One way Fung addressed this conundrum was to include local artists. In 2012, he sent out an open call, though the majority of submissions weren’t good candidates to be installed permanently, or at least for as long as real estate developers are willing to loan their lots. “You can’t put a framed picture of your kittens out here,” he said.

Jedediah Morfit described his work as “subverting the decorative arts.” He created elaborately designed bas relief lawn furniture, cast in aluminum—six chairs and a loveseat—as well as a seven-foot tall sculpture of a female fencer he described as “really just badass,” that will stand at the main entrance to the lot. Robert Lach is making four-foot fiberglass nests, cast from pieces he’d created out of organic material and garbage gathered along the Jersey Shore.

"I'm hoping that through all of our educational outreach and multiple partnering with locals, they not only embrace their new public space, but also gain a sense of ownership and value through its success."

The town is making other efforts at culture—a sculpture park along the boardwalk, a restaurant week—but Artlantic: wonder is the centerpiece, and the ever-energetic and optimistic Fung is unperturbed by skepticism of it. “I’m hoping that through all of our educational outreach and multiple partnering with locals, they not only embrace their new public space, but also gain a sense of ownership and value through its success,” he said.

It’s a very different kind of gamble for Atlantic City, a bet that creating culture will draw tourists to Atlantic City and get them to stay longer. “Non-gaming amenities are not only viable, but critical for our future,” said Liza Cartmell, president of ACA. They hope to draw more artists to the city as well, wagering that those long priced out of Chelsea, Soho and Williamsburg will flock here for 16,000 square feet of retail space on the bottom of a parking garage that CRDA wants to use for artists’ studios, galleries and a café.

And if that’s not enough, perhaps one final lure will snag the art world. As Cartmell said, “We also have a neighborhood known as Chelsea.”