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Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
Chloë Bass Installation view of Chloë Bass: Wayfinding. Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Apr 17 – Oct 31, 2021. Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass How much of care is patience, 2019. Mirrored stainless steel with frosted vinyl lettering 48 x 120 inches (121.9 x 304.8 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass I want to believe that approaches can be different without being threatening. The part of you that says “I can share myself with another.”, 2019. Double-sided frosted stainless steel sign with mirrored lettering, 36 × 24 inches (91.4 x 70 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass How much of love is attention?, 2019. Mirrored stainless steel with frosted vinyl lettering, 48 x 120 inches (121.9 x 304.8 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass I want to believe that bodies can be different without being threatening. The part of you that says I cannot be shared., 2021.Double-sided frosted stainless steel sign with mirrored lettering, 36 × 24 inches (91.4 x 70 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass I want to believe that approaches can be different without being threatening. The part of you that says “I can share myself with another.”, 2019. Double-sided frosted stainless steel sign with mirrored lettering, 36 × 24 inches (91.4 x 70 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass The unsettling sympathy and grace of someone who hands you the thing you need the second before you remember its name., 2019. Engraved aluminum, 5 × 8 inches (12.7 x 20.3 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
Chloë Bass How much of belief is encounter?, 2021. Mirrored stainless steel with frosted vinyl lettering, 48 x 120 inches (121.9 x 304.8 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass Good days are easier to describe than to interpret. Maybe that’s the point of happiness: it isn’t symbolic. It’s just a real thing, and then it passes., 2019. Engraved aluminum, 5 × 8 inches (12.7 x 20.3 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass I want to believe that desires can be different without being threatening. The part of you that says “I can share myself with strangers.”, 2019. Double-sided frosted stainless steel sign with mirrored lettering, 36 × 24 inches (91.4 x 70 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass There are times when I have agreed with you only in order to cast relief. In the absence of understanding, a minute can stretch to contain unlimited observations., 2019. Double-sided frosted stainless steel sign with mirrored lettering, 36 × 24 inches (91.4 x 70 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
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Chloë Bass Wayfinding, 2019. Acrylic sign with UV printed image 36 × 24 inches (91.4 x 70 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
No two visitors will have the same experience in the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s evocative outdoor installation Chloë Bass: Wayfinding—nor will a single observer if they visit more than once.
Depending on the weather, a visitor’s mood, the angles from which they view the artworks, what’s blooming nearby, and when or if they choose to start the audio portion of the work, the 30-plus signs arranged in four “strands” across the museum's campus will provoke different emotional responses.
Artist Chloë Bass grew up in New York City and is an only child. That meant she navigated opposing emotional states of being both isolated and highly activated at the same time, a sensation she’s offering viewers with her work. Bass doesn’t want to impose any specific response on viewers, preferring to encourage them to access their own when they enter the isolation/activation mindset.
“It is intriguing to me what feelings come up for you in that state,” says Bass. “I’m not interested in emotional manipulation. I am capable of it, but I don’t find it artistically interesting.”
Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
Chloë Bass How much of belief is encounter?, 2021. Mirrored stainless steel with frosted vinyl lettering, 48 x 120 inches (121.9 x 304.8 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
The exhibition is made up of signs at different scales: reflective billboards and midsize placards, small plaque-size pieces, and cropped photographic images from the New York Public Library’s collection. They fill Park-Like, the green space across from the museum, as well as areas around the museum, with no specific path or progression indicated.
“Half the show is really, really small,” Bass says. Indeed, finding the garden plaques feels a bit like an Easter egg hunt. “If you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss them—and that’s OK."
The billboards pose questions. The placards, printed on both sides, and the plaques offer meditative snippets that repeat in slightly altered form across the exhibition. The photos are all scenes of holding and are framed by lots of clear plexiglass so that the image appears to be almost suspended in the landscape.
Chloë Bass Wayfinding, 2019. Acrylic sign with UV printed image 36 × 24 inches (91.4 x 70 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
“They have this real ability to disappear and integrate,” Bass says of the sculptures. “Take the time to move around it, because it will appear totally differently. It doesn’t impose itself onto the landscape. Places are already places; they don’t become places because we put a piece of public art there.”
The audio artwork, accessible from a smart phone, features Bass, poet and podcaster Cheeraz Gormon, artist Damon Davis, and theater artist Ron Himes reading quotes from the city’s Mow to Own program, Google and Yelp reviews of the Pulitzer, National Institutes of Health reports on aging and disorientation, landscape architecture teaching guides, phrases from the sculptures, and Bass’ personal narrative. It’s poignant, funny, disorienting, and evocative by turns.
The show debuted in St. Nicholas Park in Harlem and was originally commissioned by The Studio Museum. That installation provided a different feel, Bass explains, because it wasn’t in a place where viewers were necessarily expecting to encounter art.
Chloë Bass: Wayfinding continues at the Pulitzer through November 14.
Chloë Bass Every time I’ve nearly been killed I’ve survived it, but that doesn’t mean I’m out looking for more devastation in order to prove a point., 2019. Engraved aluminum, 5 × 8 inches (12.7 x 20.3 cm) Courtesy of the artist Photograph by Alise O’Brien, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O’Brien
