26 WINDOWS; A PORTRAIT BONWIT TELLER
April 1974 - October 1976
New York, New York
Five days.

Materials

Background

Their windows sold clothing. Mine were dedicated to the idea or recycled contexts.

The windows provided a vehicle in which to deconstruct and reintegrate elements of an existing environment, and to communicate interactively to a broad public.

A complex and extensive collaboration evolved not only between myself and Bonwit Teller window display division , publicity and management, but also including physicists, video experts, holographers, designers, futurists, live models, the N.Y. Transit Authority and Insgroup} Eventually, over 300 people worked on this project.

Like the other "portraits" it was important that all elements of the installation be indigenous to the site, in this case, a department store. My hope was to create another alternative way of working; to integrate art with life.

While working on the windows, it became obvious that the process resembled making a movie, but without film. There was a narrative sequence involving time, and each window was like a celluloid frame or story board.

Ten years later, a movie was made based on the windows. In 1986 I went to Pittsburg on location to remake the exact installation for the feature LADY BEWARE.

This project began a trend in window design in New York that used windows to tell stories. Fortunes were made by creating outrageous windows for leading department stores. But they were not made by me. Despite offers, I didn't want to repeat myself.

Footnotes to the Windows

56th Street, Past and Illusion

WINDOW 24- Use Jackie Ochs time lapse images of actual window changes taken over the past three months and project this onto the wall that reflects in reverse back onto the window itself. Reduce size 1/2, speed it up 12 times.

WINDOW 23 - Jo Hanson's enlarged film stripscreate a forest-like environment while lights placed outside the windows cause shadows to camouflage white mannequins, making them nearly invisible.

Fifth Avenue, Time Identity and Transformation

WINDOWS 2-4 - A life size photographic image of Blaise Simpson undresses and simultaneously ages. Cartoon baloons create the text that reads: When I was young I had everything" I wrapped my skin and hid my thoughts" As I grew older I wanted more. A real mannequin sits in the corner, watching, while my plates destruct .

WINDOW 20A- Becomes a shower stall that holds film of tinted water drops.

WINDOW 20B - Is identical to 20A except that vaporizers create real steam that cloud the windows. These are alchemical baths for real to virtual transformations.

WINDOW 20 - A specially made film strip of the two models from San Francisco (Ruth Stein and Blaise Simpson) are adapted into viewfinders for left and right eye, so viewers see a three dimensional combination of the two women. Left represents the past, right the future. The appear models in front of the store, providing a fore/ground background shift in tension between what is real or illusion, like a Hans Hoffman painting.

WINDOWS 5-8 continue the ideas of aging. Ruth and Blaise look alike except they are separated by 20 years time. The life size photographs turn into Ruth as the model approaches 40. The balloon clouds now say the reverse:"When I was young I had nothing. I know now what I should have known then" Less is more, more or less?"

56th Street, Reflections and The Future

WINDOW 10 - Mannequins begin to act out one of the CRIMES OF PASSION with mirrors covering their faces so that pedestrians see their face appear on the body of the mannequin,. and become both victim sand murderers depending upon which direction they walk on the street.

WINDOW 11- The mannequin begins to break out of the window.Her body is inside while a hand juts through the glass to freedom outside. The exterior of the window looks shattered.

WINDOW 12 - An enlarged map of N.Y. shows the mannequins adventures in the city as she travels with a n endless audio cassette in her chest, talking to people. She is accompaniesd by a " human" look alike. Day l, October 29, Central Park, October 30, Metropolitan Museum, October 3l, 52nd Street Subway, November l, Soho, November 2, 42nd Street, November 3, back to the window.

WINDOWS 14-15- Based on quantim logic, polarizers create the word TIME that is ignited by sunlight while a mannequin in a gas mask watches. This tableau was created by Dr. Nick Herbert.

WINDOW 16 - A pollster on the street hands questionaires about solar energy to people on the street, whose response is registered on a chart inside the window.

WINDOW 17 - A 6 minute film showing interviews is played via a back lit screen on the front window, enlarged to 8 feet. Giant faces made of recycled news footage dwarf people with their messages.

WINDOW 18 - The committee of the future talk directly through two way microphones to people on the street about any questions they have on a variety of subjects. This portion is simultaneously broadcast over the radio in Washington D.C.
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