For this Brooklyn art exhibit, the end was just the beginning.
Belongings of dozens of people who died in New York City — ranging from the mundane to the incredibly moving — are on display at Green-Wood Cemetery’s Fort Hamilton Gatehouse as part of artist-in-residence Adam Tendler’s latest exhibition, “Exit Strategy.”
Some of the items, including clothing, friendship bracelets, VHS tapes and underwear, were once left behind by surviving loved ones and donated to the project.
In the exhibit, forgotten pieces of personal history are scattered on a piano, with handwritten notes from loved ones explaining them on the walls.
Tendler, a pianist and composer, told The Washington Post that his recently deceased father was the inspiration for the exhibit, which features the “accidental legacies” people inherit.
“The question that this project raises, and what it’s trying to explore, is really: ‘What have I been given that I didn’t ask for?'” Tendler said.
“What we are left with is sometimes an accidental legacy that was not bestowed upon us, but that we simply carry,” he says. “It can be physical, but it can also be psychological and emotional artifacts like memories: things that were said to us, smells, sounds. All of these things are bestowed upon us by chance.”
The Vermont-born artist, who lives in Brooklyn, began the project by collecting clothing from people who had passed away.
“Especially my dad’s clothes. The only things I have of him are his underwear, socks and pajamas,” Tendler said.
He was then able to get the supplies he needed for the project by putting out a call through the cemetery’s various email systems, which connected him with a network of grief support groups and cemetery regulars throughout the spring and summer.
Tendler then met with each donor in person to hear their story.
“A teacher brought in a seashell that was over 30 years old and belonged to a student who was probably about 10 years old. [and] “She was diagnosed with AIDS as a child,” Tendler said, “and he brought her a seashell from a Make-A-Wish trip. She treasured it for decades and brought it to the installation to be released.”
The premise of the show is to let go of items, but Tendler offered teachers the unusual opportunity to take home some shells after the show closes next month.
“She had to remind me of the purpose of what I was doing,” Tendler said. “She was like, ‘No, I’m actually ready to let this go.'”
The teacher’s seashells hang on the walls alongside his briefs and striped shirts, while a three-hour loop of Tendler’s original music plays somberly in the background.
“At Greenwood, we are building relationships with contemporary artists,” Harry Weil, Greenwood’s vice president for education and public programs, said in a statement.
“Their artwork helps us build relationships with the community. During his year at the cemetery, Adam really understood Greenwood’s history and its role as a place where people can seek solace.”
Tendler acknowledged that his installation looks a bit like a “crime scene.”
“I’m interested in contradictions and contrasts because our thoughts and experiences are chaotic,” he said. “They’re not black and white, and this installation exists somewhere between beauty and chaos and horror and rawness.”
“Exit Strategy” will be open to the public through August 25th from 11am to 4pm at Green-Wood Cemetery.
Tendler also has an “exit strategy” for the exhibit, planning to keep all the handwritten letters but recycle the physical items.
“At first, I was really excited about it,” Tendler says. “I thought, ‘I’m just going to destroy everything and that’s going to be part of the process.’ But then I met people and heard these stories and I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m doing that to these items.'”
“I [the items] We’ll leave it as an accidental legacy or find a place to put it, but it won’t be destroyed.”
