Voyeur
Photos from the 2008 FIGMENT Participatory Arts Event
August 10 - October 12, 2008
Opening Sunday, August 10, 2-5 p.m.
Building 14, Nolan Park, Governors Island
Earlier this summer over 10,000 people came to Governors Island over the course of three days to create and engage with participatory art projects from over 200 artists. This highly eclectic 100% volunteer effort was a major success for non-commercial art in New York City. While the ruckus has subsided the artistic fervor remains.
Voyeur is a free photographic exhibition chronicling the merriment of FIGMENT 2008 located in Building 14 of New York’s most exciting parkland island. Voyeur is curated by a team of FIGMENT volunteers who just couldn’t get enough and features images from over 30 photographers.
For the title to this exhibition, "Voyeur," we return to the origins of the name FIGMENT for our event, Andy Warhol. Warhol once said, "I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment.'" Warhol, in much of his work, approaches his subjects as a voyeur, as a passive observer who enjoys watching the excitement around him. As FIGMENT is a participatory art event, and this is a photo exhibition, with the images separated in time from the participatory activities they present, we are all necessarily voyeurs, non-participants, in looking at these photos.