First it was Jeanne-Claude and Christo's 7,503 bright orange panels crisscrossing Central Park; then came Olafur Eliasson's 120-foot man-made waterfalls in New York Harbor. This month, New York City gets its next pièce de résistance, when the Water Tank Project wraps more than 100 of the city's iconic rooftop water tanks in artists' canvases, versions of which will be auctioned to raise funds for projects in Tanzania and other places facing dire clean-water shortages. "We want to go deep with the issue," says curator Mary Jordan, a documentary filmmaker.
The inspiration behind the installation—which includes Dutch illustrator Sigrid Calon's graphic fluorescent pink water droplets and conceptual photographer Laurie Simmons' image of a life-size latex doll taking the plunge—came in 2007, while Jordan was working on a project in Ethiopia.
She was struck by the realization that fully a fifth of the world's population lacks access to clean water—just another thing New Yorkers can take for granted, thanks to the reservoirs that have dotted our skyline since the Industrial Revolution. Each American uses about 100 gallons of water per day, as compared with the two to five gallons used by the average person in sub-Saharan Africa. "When I first came to Manhattan in 1973 as a young artist, I remember looking up all the time. The water tank near where I lived on Houston Street was a symbol that I had really arrived," says Simmons. "I hope that this project jolts people into an awareness to be less wasteful, because safe water should be part of the basic package of your human rights."
For more about the Water Tank Project (and the full list of artists participating, including Bruce Weber, Carrie Mae Weems, John Baldessari, Jeff Koons, and so many more), visit their website.