Richard Nonas

USE is the point here; how this place is used. River, housing project, skyline, black neighborhood, Hell Gate currents, industrial area, wasteland: sculpture park — the site, the situation, the sculpture. (All specific, all detailed, all complicated and confusing.) Two years ago this was a trash dump unused; now it’s a sculpture park — still a dump — but USED.

Used for work, used for play, used for art. USE IS THE POINT; use by neighbors, use by artists, use by visitors, and use by the sculpture itself. For strong sculpture USES its site, too; strong sculpture pushes its space, pulls it, stretches it up or out, changes it: uses it.

Strong sculpture MAKES the place it ends up in; it does not just visit it. It USES it in order to make it.

Strong sculpture CHANGES SPACE TO PLACE, and changes its USE for us.