Shrine (2010)

A site-specific installation in the heart of New York City, Shrine transformed a defunct retail space on 37th street into a glittering storefront shrine. The space created an unexpected inlet of texture, light and color in the highly commercialized, frenetic zone of midtown Manhattan. Shrine's symbols are abstracted, pointing to no deity or tradition--an exercise in condensing thousands of years of ritual into a generic contemporary spin-off. Visitors could draw as much or as little spiritual meaning as they chose from the installation's aesthetically deliberate, but iconographically empty arrangement of colors, shapes, textures and sounds. The items atop Shrine's central pedestal were changed daily. This work was a collaboration with Kate Gavriel. Photo credit: Jesus Sanchez.