Alan Ruiz: Precincts

Alan Ruiz’s Precincts explores the boundaries of the West 10th Window by confronting the space of the display as a volume, as opposed to a container, through a series of customized vertical white aluminum sheets. Precincts simultaneously references the surrounding neighborhood: the 6th Precinct of the New York Police Department (which is immediately adjacent to the West 10th Window) and the shopping district on Bleecker Street. Rather than displaying an object for consumption, Ruiz inverts the traditional storefront window display by redirecting the viewer’s gaze through and out of the window. The white aluminum sheets fill the volume of the space, but are cut in such a way to create a visual passageway that redirects the viewer’s gaze towards the police precinct and neighboring private property. As such, Precincts warrants a kind of physicalized act of looking that subverts the notion of consumption while referencing surveillance via the viewer’s redirected gaze. Precincts relates to Ruiz’s wider artistic practice of exploring the tensions between standardized materials and customization, as well as the relationship between architecture and power, particularly as it relates to the delineation and control of public and private space.

________________________________

The West 10th Street Window is curated by Natalie Diaz and Jennie Lamensdorf and is sponsored by the Time Equities Inc. (TEI) Art-in-Buildings Program. TEI is committed to enriching the experience of our properties through the Art-in-Buildings Program, an innovative approach that brings contemporary art by emerging and mid-career artists to non-traditional exhibition spaces in the interest of promoting artists, expanding the audience for art, and creating a more interesting environment for our building occupants, residents, and their guests.