Alec Nicolescu and Jerry Vis
Survival 4

This installation was the fourth in a series about survival—physical, psychic and emotional. Alec Nicolescu and Jerry Vis built a 33′ suspension bridge from wall to wall in the space. Alec Nicolesou recalled, “I lived on the bridge for a while and guarded it. I was armed with a harpoon and the enemy was the friend (Vis) who worked with me. I also served meals to strangers and guests. The experience was written, photographed, and recorded. A specific form of communication was directed at a handful of people, the intention being to investigate psi phenomena in an art context.
One of these people, D., I had known for a dozen years. We had experimented together before. The scores ranged from ‘something’ (a miss?) to several hits (one hundred percent accuracy). We designated a specific time for communicating with each other. The only other stipulation was to ‘draw what you see, write what you hear.’ I was looking at the suspended bridge through a wide angle camera lens, which explains the sharply converging perspective lines drawn by D. [see Illustration] The ‘lamp’ is a fairly common quartz-iodide bulb fitted inside a parabolic reflector. D. drew it twice with directional arrows for the light. The ‘grapefruit’ refers to the crate of oranges offered to the public at the opening and rolled out on the floor. References to the ceiling, suspended forms and gravitational arrows seem to describe something about the bridge and, perhaps, the latrine that was hung from a pulley and lowered to the floor as needed (112 had no W.C. facilities to be used overnight). The one form that D. drew without comprehending it entirely was the deck of the bridge at eye level and that, quite comprehensibly, was what the public saw facing the rear of the gallery. D.’s response was very much on target and would be scored a hit by anyone’s standards.”
Toward the end of the installation period, the bridge was dismantled and re-assembled into a four-tiered suspended structure. Jerry Vis wrote at the time of the installation, “Reality doesn’t exist in frozen moments or predetermined goals. I cannot endure the separation we have built between life and art—between comprehension and its object. Perhaps survival is that condition generated between two disparate realities!”

Excerpted from Brentano, R., & Savitt, M. (1981). 112 Workshop, 112 Greene Street: History, artists & artworks. New York: New York University Press.