Artist Giangaetano Patané will be in conversation with Claudio Pagliara, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, in conjunction with his temporary public art project The Last Five Fish in the Sea, installed in the fountain at Bella Abzug Park, in Hudson Yards, New York.
The intervention, realized in the public space and presented in collaboration with NYC Parks and the Hudson Yards Hell’s Kitchen Alliance, places five terracotta fish in the water of an urban fountain, transforming—if only temporarily—a place of passage into a space for contemplation.
The simplicity of the gesture and materials opens up an intense visual experience: the rippling of the water and the play of light on the surfaces create a subtle yet powerful illusion. The fish seem alive. The fountain becomes an allegory of the sea—yet a finite sea, bounded, with a visible edge.
By choosing five fish—enough to suggest possibility, too few to reassure—Patané keeps the question open regarding the relationship between nature, artifice, and human presence. The Last Five Fish in the Sea offers no answers, but invites us to pause, to look, to be present. In that fragile instant, something of the world becomes visible again.
It is not possible to make multiple reservations with the same email address.
Register to the Event