anna pinkas
one in series of 10 watercolor on paper
video documentation
2008
Site-specific projection, hand drawn animation, watercolors
This quote from the famous film producer and screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, evokes the constant entanglement of the mythic “Movie New York” and the “Real New York” outside our windows. This dichotomy constitutes the focal point of this two part installation. The series of watercolors depict and interchanges The” New York Street” sets found in any big Hollywood studio since the 1920’s, and the cinematic locations featured by the “Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting of the City of New York”. The uncanny similarities between both types of sets attest to the conjunctions that have shaped both the real and filmic city through a constant dialogue between both spaces since the advent of sound and the shifting of the movie industry from Manhattan to Hollywood. The adjacent animation, juxtaposed with the gallery’s mesmerizing view of the Manhattan skyline, summons the dreamlike, cinematic images that permeate our perception of this iconic view and the city it embodies.