paxmachina: NY crude has nothing to do with crass Stockbrokers. A Wildcat Operation in Midtown By RANDY KENNEDY In many parts of the country the pump jack — a kind of equine-pterodactyl metal monstrosity that perpetually extracts oil from a well — is as familiar a feature of the landscape as a tree or a telephone pole. Josephine Meckseper with her moving pump jack sculptures in the lot at West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. But to come across a pair towering over a vacant lot in Midtown Manhattan, with a “Jesus Christ Superstar” billboard on one side and a porn store on the other, is a little surreal, like a portrait of John D. Rockefeller by Magritte. The two pumps, 25 feet tall, materialized this week on a lot at 46th Street and Eighth Avenue where a hotel once stood, now the only remaining patch of undeveloped land in the neighborhood. On Monday the pumps will be activated and — at least if their creator, the German-born artist Josephine Meckseper, has her way — they will cause passers-by to think about a lot more than whether there might actually be black gold coursing beneath the urban bedrock. more High-res

paxmachina:

NY crude has nothing to do with crass Stockbrokers.

A Wildcat Operation in Midtown

By 

In many parts of the country the pump jack — a kind of equine-pterodactyl metal monstrosity that perpetually extracts oil from a well — is as familiar a feature of the landscape as a tree or a telephone pole.

Josephine Meckseper with her moving pump jack sculptures in the lot at West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.
But to come across a pair towering over a vacant lot in Midtown Manhattan, with a “Jesus Christ Superstar” billboard on one side and a porn store on the other, is a little surreal, like a portrait of John D. Rockefeller by Magritte. The two pumps, 25 feet tall, materialized this week on a lot at 46th Street and Eighth Avenue where a hotel once stood, now the only remaining patch of undeveloped land in the neighborhood. On Monday the pumps will be activated and — at least if their creator, the German-born artist Josephine Meckseper, has her way — they will cause passers-by to think about a lot more than whether there might actually be black gold coursing beneath the urban bedrock.

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(via outsidermag)