ARTIST'S 'DREAM'
Times Sq. sculpture invites high hopes
Times Square’s largest-ever art installation was unveiled this week as a beacon for New Yorkers and tourists alike, who are invited to “conjure” up their cathartic thoughts and feelings — and even hopes for the future.
“People are actually doing that. We’ve seen people holding hands and having a tender moment,” Jean Cooney, director of Times Square Arts, the organization that installed the 30-foot-tall “Sculpture of Dreams,” told The Post.
“We might have some people doing New Year’s resolutions a couple of months early.”
One out-of-towner, 40-year-old Argentinian tourist Andrea Arguindegui, stopped by with her daughter, Emilia, 6, and expressed a desire to visit more places like the Big Apple.
“My hope and dream is to be able to travel a lot with my family,” Arguindegui said, adding it has “been long” since they’d traveled, “so I’m really happy to be here.”
The mom finished by saying she just wanted “to lead a super authentic life.”
Arguindegui was practically dwarfed by the inflatable piece of art, a vibrantly striped work by Argentine artist Marta Minujín that is made of 16 separate oblong pieces abstractly stitched together.
Minneapolis visitor Debra Shonka-Barta, 68, lauded the “wonderful” installment, which evokes an uplifting embrace of intertwined limbs wrapped in a convergence of color that includes blues, greens, purples, oranges, yellows, reds and more.
‘Less divisive’
“I really hope my two grown sons that, once married — one’s getting married this weekend — that they and their children grow up in a less divisive world,” Shonka-Barta said.
Her words were punctuated by a recording of singing birds that added an unusual intimacy to one of the world’s hot spots.
“We really are a small universe,” she said. “And if the world can just come together more and people come together so that there truly is understanding people’s diversity and culture — and it is one world.”
And two cheery visitors from Charleston, SC — clinical researcher Brianna Geddis, 23, and behavior technician Elizabeth Singleton, 24 — had their own joint request.
“We wish for more life, more health and more wow!” they shared in unison before breaking into laughter in front of the structure, which — besides drawing dream-filled visitors — also teases the upcoming exhibit “Marta Minujín: Arte! Arte! Arte!” at The Jewish Museum from Nov. 17 through March 31.