All the King's Horses

A site-specific installation at Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ. 2009. Salvaged material, steel piping, water. 10' x 17' x 10'.

By explicitly addressing the relationship of Newark's historic Louis XIV-style Victorian Krueger-Scott mansion to owner Gottfried Krueger's role as a self-made beer-brewing magnate, "All the King's Horses" enacts the parallel creative acts of artists and industrialists, both of whom physically manifest their dreamed visions. Built in 1889, the mansion is the largest and most expensive home ever built in the city of Newark.

My process, which included site-visits to microbreweries to conduct research and gather materials, in many ways mirrored the journeys of entrepreneurs such as Krueger. In order to manifest their visions, both artists and entrepreneurs must take risks, conduct research, acquire skills, access and utilize multiple systems of resource, conduct experiments, and ultimately, engage in physical construction and system development. In so doing, artmaking enacts and refracts the manufacturing of industry, of identity, of architecture, of product.

The incongruencies, puzzlements and fundamental fragility of the installation seek to leave the viewer questioning whether what s/he is viewing is in the process of construction or deconstruction/collapse. How are dreams built? How do they die? What happens to the very physical components from which they have been constructed? What are our communal responsibilities toward that materiality?



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