Berlin-based conceptual artist and prankster Tatzu Nishi has encased the statue of Christopher Columbus that stands on a seventy-five-foot-high pillar at the southwest corner of Central Park in a living room. The installation, Discovering Columbus, will be in place through mid-November. Visitors can climb up six flights of stairs through a web of construction scaffolding, as I did last week, to a lordly panorama of Central Park and a closer look at the statue, which has got a swagger in its stance and a faraway look in its eyes. The play in scales is striking. The statue is about fifteen feet tall and the room enclosing it just a few feet higher and bears down uncomfortably. And while the statue is naturally-proportioned, its feet seem stupendously large while its head seems not quite big enough.
The installation is a great, simple idea. But I wish Nishi had thought a bit harder about the architecture of the space and the character of the man. The living room has the blank proportions of a double-wide. The walls are wrapped in a custom-designed wallpaper featuring American icons like Michael Jackson and Elvis, but that cheekiness doesn’t carry over into the furnishings, which look like they were ordered from Bob’s. The friend I was with wished for a picture window over Broadway, where Columbus seems to be looking. I wished for a lavish fifteenth-century interior with silk drapes and gilded coffers. From Nishi’s website we can see that he’s built similar “living rooms” to recontextualize prominent statues around the world, including one of Queen Victoria and another by Rodin. But did he stop to think about what Columbus did and why we need to memorialize him? Seeing the statue like this prompted me to reread the astounding opening pages of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which retell Columbus’ landing in the Bahamas using excerpts from the explorer’s diaries. Arawak Indians come to the shores with food and gifts for their visitors while Columbus, from the deck of his ship, observes their physical grace and good nature, and begins thinking about what fine servants and guides they’ll be. Discovering Columbus gives us a closer look at the statue, but not at the man.