DUMBO: Art Under the Bridge

Last weekend, the DUMBO Arts Council sponsored its eleventh annual arts festival, which I've attended for several years running. I plan to write at length about a couple NY-related projects I came across, one of which really has me excited, but for now I wanted to post this photo a friend took:

This neon work, one half of an installation by the Canadian-born, New York-based artist Juozas Cernius, was mounted over one exit from the waterfront park between the bridges. The other half of the piece, mounted on the other side of the gate (that is, over the entrance), said "GOD IS GREAT."

I love this piece for a million reasons. Why hadn't anyone ever thought to say "God Was Great" before? It's such a funny sentiment: Sure, God was good back in the day, before he sold out. Or, God was great in bed last night. Or God was great, and then humans had to go and ruin it.

I'd seen this photo before I showed up there Saturday. In context I found the piece to be even more interesting. Unless you entered the park, you only ever saw the "GOD IS GREAT" side from the street. The sign looked a little like the entrance to a Christian theme park, with all the families with dogs and baby strollers milling around on the lawn inside.

But the other thing through that gate, of course, is the hole in the sky where the WTC used to be. (Why's it on my mind so much this week?) It's hard not to be in that park and spend some time looking across the river. What does it mean to situate your religious theme park across from Manhattan? (Of course the Jehovah's Witness HQ was in DUMBO long before the neighborhood picked up that acronym and became, as one friend put it, a paradise for yuppies.) Are you safe on Brooklyn's shores, protected from the evil metropolis beyond?

When you turn around to leave the park though, and get the "GOD WAS GREAT" side, it's hard -- at least it's hard for me -- not to associate the sentiment with 9/11 itself. God was great, and then he had to go and provide an excuse for religious fanatics to fly planes into towers full of people. It's a funny sign, but with a hell of a bitter bite.