A billboard, 75 by 25 feet, at 10th Avenue and West 18th Street in Chelsea, next to the High Line. It is a giant image of a woman’s 10 perfectly manicured and jeweled fingers, detached from their hands, emerging from a vibrant blue velvet background. It was unveiled on Thursday and can be seen from both the elevated pathway and the street.
The billboard is part of a High Line series that began last December with “The First $100,000 I Ever Made,” a blown-up photograph of a real $100,000 bill, the largest denomination the United States government ever printed, by the Los Angeles artist John Baldessari. This new billboard — the fourth — will be on view through June 30.
Cattelan created the image with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari as part of Toilet Paper, a two-year-old art magazine founded by the two men. The billboard’s photograph was taken in Milan, and while Cattelan and Ferrari held casting sessions to find just the pair of hands to shoot, Cattelan said they happened on an old woman in a bar near the sessions and asked her to pose.
“It’s like a magic trick,” said Cecilia Alemani, director of the public art program at Friends of the High Line. “It’s almost cinematic in its format.”
Cattelan called the image “Surreal but verging on Pop,” adding that “it’s a bit gory but without the blood.”