FOREST COSTS CHEAPER
Salmanov’s work is based on his recent performance in Manhattan, New York City. The artist went to the very heart of America on a mission, based on the history and mythology of the island. As it goes in oral tradition, Manhattan was acquired from Indians in the early colonization years for a handful of necklaces that cost about 24 old US Dollars. Departing from this story, Salmanov went out in the streets with a proposal-slogan “Will buy Manhattan for 25 Yuans”. This provocative gesture turned for the artist into a very intimate experience of introspection in the public space of the big city. This was balanced by the followed collaborative actions of symbolic acquiring of Manhattan from a New Yorker and giving it back to the Indians in the person of a local Native American.
Project by Aleksey Salmanov
Photography and video by Arthur Bondar