Registering New York by Carlos García
As you walk, you feel that everything is familiar, that you have already walked down that street before. This is 3rd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue, just 2 streets above Houston. It is in New York’s East Village. Many mornings, I go up to the rooftop of my apartment building before I go out. From there, to the north, there is a marvellous landscape of irregular rooftops, which become mountains of vertically-stacked dreams, reaching for the sun, I try to take a breath of air before returning to reality and waking up with an exceptional visual bang. I turn 180 degrees and look to the south. There I find the same vertical skyline. Now I can confirm that this is not a dream, this is New York, and I’m preparing to experience it for one more day.
Almost 11 years have passed since my first visit to the city, but there were so many things to see, to do and to feel from another perspective. Eleven years of installation projects, of pictorial development, of construction and of sculptural evolution. Projects that have gradually acquired their own artistic language; concepts and projects that are constantly evolving.
Going back to the city that inspired me on my first visit 11 years ago and witnessing, tracing the footprints, registering the sound, visual, emotional and vital landscape of New York City, was key to understanding the distance travelled and to plan and develop my present and future artistic projects. I will be able to publicly display some of these projects in the following months.
It is amazing how a second, a single decision can impact the life of a person. Everything transcends and everything has repercussions. This project, and the support of the María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation has allowed me to continue on my journey, creating an emotional landscape in my memory, multiplying neuronal connections and creating new artistic dreams to turn into reality.
Carlos García
New York, 3 March 2010.
