Goldberg, Neil
U.S. (1963 - )
19 Rainstorms
1998 - 2003
Two single-channel videos (color, sound); Duration: 1:40:02
Variable
Gift of William and Ruth True
FA 2014.301

Neil Goldberg expresses an interest in fleeting, empty moments of the everyday that are “available for projection.” While filming outdoors, the artist was at times caught in a downpour of rain. Rather than packing up and heading home, Goldberg would take advantage of the spontaneous interruption by wrapping his camera in a plastic bag and walking through the city streets, pausing to hang it from places like trees, light poles, and street signs, letting the tape record the city under the rain for several minutes. He repeated the process several times and combined the footage to produce the work 19 Rainstorms, a dizzying, dream-like stroll through the wet streets of Manhattan. The plastic membrane of the bag creates an opaque filter, but also provides an unlikely human shelter that offers us a very unique perspective and experience of the city.

Neil Goldberg was born in Queens, New York in 1963. He received his B.A. in history and computer science from Brown University. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and three different awards from the New York State Council on the Arts. In 2012, a mid-career survey of Goldberg’s work, Stories the City Tells Itself, was organized by the Museum of the City of New York. He has exhibited his video, photography, and sculptural works since 1992 at venues such as The Museum of Modern Art and The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; The New Society for Visual Arts (NGBK), Berlin and the Kunsthalle Munich in Germany. Goldberg’s work is included in a number of collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Jewish Museum in New York. In the summer of 2013, his video, Surfacing, was projected by the Times Square Alliance on fifteen large digital billboards throughout Times Square (New York) every evening just before midnight. -- Guidebook copy for The Ghost of Architecture, July 13 to September 29, 2013.