One of New York City’s best-kept-secret parks is Brooklyn Bridge Park, at least the more (relatively) remote parts like the Pier 3 Uplands (Greenway Terrace). If you visit early enough in the morning, you may have the quiet clearing surrounded by woods all to yourself, which seems unlikely and feels magical all things considered. This pleasant micro-wilderness on the East River currently hosts renowned Pakistani artist Huma Bhabha’s sculptural installation, Before The End (2024), a work that more than warrants its dramatic, historic backdrop.
Displayed at a distance of at least 20 or so feet from one another, the four eight-foot-tall monoliths that comprise Before The End are titled enigmatically, Feel the Hammer, Member, Mr. Stone, and Nothing Falls. These four dark, slightly sinister, hulking figures conjure the palatial or temple guardian figures of old. While they appear to be haphazardly hewn from wood, the sculptures are actually painted, patinated bronze that the artist cast from pliable, carved cork and skeletal fragments. Their surfaces are rough, as though eroded by the elements and time; there is the sense that they’ve inhabited this urban glade for centuries or even millennia.
Huma Bhabha borrowed the title, Before The End, from the medieval writer monk, Vincent de Beauvais (c. 1184/1194 – c. 1264). A Dominican friar at the Cistercian monastery of Royaumont Abbey situated 20 miles north of Paris, Vincent de Beauvais’ magnum opus was Speculum Maius (Great Mirror) (1235-1264). Written over the course of almost 30 years, the book is more like an encyclopedia or compendium; it was read by the literati of Western Europe in the medieval period and influenced countless writers and thinkers. Both the Abbey and King Louis IX (Saint Louis) funded the project.
It was Vincent de Beauvais’ writings on the apocalypse and the supernatural specifically that sparked Huma’s interest. In Speculum Maius Books xviii. – xxii., for instance, the prolific, imaginative friar wrote not merely of the beasts of the Earth, both domesticated and wild, but also of fantastical, otherworldly creatures like the “draconope,” a snake-footed beast with a serpent’s body and the face of a maiden.
The individual figures of Before The End dominate the Greenway Terrace’s charming clearing. They seem to have outlasted everything ancient in this stretch of drowned valley, the former marshland bordering the saltwater strait we now call the East River. The Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, and other iconic buildings of Lower Manhattan, towering gantry cranes at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the distinctive, bright orange Staten Island Ferry making its crossing, and other familiar, quintessential NYC features provide a disconcerting contrast to these ominous beings.
Where have they come from? Why are they here? Are they, indeed, guardians or harbingers of the Apocalypse? To be honest, they remind me of the freakish objects that occasionally wash up on the banks of this urban estuary like the so-called “East River Monster” from 2011. The skeletal components certainly establish them as monstrous, and yet a closer look at Feel the Hammer reveals a bright red, diamond-shaped form nesting beneath the clasped hands (or claws) of the figure, hands that appear to be clasped in prayer.
Mostly black with seemingly age-scarred surfaces, deeply incised lines describe the anatomy of these hulking creatures. Certain details such as breasts, buttocks, nails/claws, and the glistening heart of Feel the Hammer are painted white and other primary colors. The ghastly, skeletal heads are quite incongruous, as though decay of the bodies was held at bay inexplicably. Or, perhaps the heads are much older?
In contrast to the blocky bodies, there is a peculiar, chthonic elegance to the heads. The head of Feel the Hammer, for instance, is reminiscent of the shell of a horseshoe crab (you see them relatively aplenty, washed up on the beaches of Long Island), a primordial creature if there ever was one. The head of Member, meanwhile, appears to be an inverted spine and pelvis, with empty hip sockets standing in for eyes.
Like the mysterious megaliths of the Neolithic period, Huma’s eldritch beings appear to be arranged according to a logic unknown to us in the present day. They are staggered across the clearing, watchful sentries–or soldiers? They don’t engage with one another. Rather, like their brethren of the guardian order, they are charged with protecting humans and deities alike from malevolent spirits.
According to the Public Art Fund, Huma drew inspiration “from a diverse array of influences,” blending “aesthetic, cultural, and psychological elements, probing the intersections of art, science fiction, horror, and mythology.” (Public Art Fund) Probably not surprisingly, H.R. Giger’s aliens and Giacometti’s surreal, bronze beasts (like his disturbing, hybrid mantis-woman), informed the artist’s visual and contextual vocabulary. Sardonic levity also plays a role, if not the kind of whistling-past-the-graveyard humor.
Huma – who is based in Poughkeepsie (NY) – was born in Karachi (Pakistan). She moved to the USA in 1981 and attended the Rhode Island School of Design, then the School of the Arts at Columbia University in Manhattan. “Since the 1990s,” notes the Public Art Fund, she “has become known for layered and nuanced work that centers on reinvention of the figure and its expressive possibilities. Her formally inventive practice encompasses sculpture, drawings, and photography.” She has exhibited broadly in the U.S. and overseas and has won numerous, prestigious awards, including The American Academy in Berlin’s Berlin Prize and the Emerging Artist Award from The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Before The End will remain on view at the Uplands Lawn at Pier 3 in Brooklyn Bridge Park through March 9, 2025. Huma Bhabha’s work was curated by artistic and executive director of the Public Art Fund, Nicholas Baume. I’m especially intrigued by the potential for the seasonally-changing landscape to reveal unexpected transformations in these timeless-seeming creatures. In particular, I’m looking forward to revisiting the site when the trees are barren and the clearing feels more pointedly like a liminal place between sea and land, city and barren plain.
© Debra Thimmesch (9/1/24) – Special for FF2 Media
LEARN MORE/DO MORE
Learn more about Huma Bhabha through the David Zwirner Gallery.
Read about the artist at the David Kordansky Gallery.
Interested in learning more about the Public Art Fund?
CREDITS & PERMISSIONS
Featured Photo: Cropped & photoshopped by Jan Lisa Huttner for FF2 Media.
Middle Photo #1: Huma Bhabha’s Feel the Hammer.
Middle Photo #2: Two figures on display in Brooklyn Bridge Park by Huma Bhabha.
Bottom Photo: Huma Bhabha (2022). Photo by Daniel Dorsa is used with permission of David Zwirner on behalf of Huma Bhabha. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Both photos of Huma Bhabha’s sculptural installation Before The End (2024) taken by Debra Thimmesch on 7/13/24. Authorized for responsible use by FF2 Media LLC as long as user includes a link to this post in credits.
