Following the success of Art on the Beach, Creative Time was presented with a unique opportunity to program installations and events during the summer months inside the cavernous space of the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage. In 1983, to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the bridge, Art in the Anchorage (1983–2001) inaugurated an annual series of exhibitions.

For the first year, ten artists were commissioned to create new works addressing the “vivid historical and visual qualities of the Anchorage,” including the barrel vaulted ceilings and massive masonry piers housing the bridge’s cables. Thus, visitors could listen to Spalding Gray muse over his and others’ reminiscences about the bridge and its surrounding neighborhood, while around him, installations addressed the Gothic nature of the environment, a dark rusticated interior reminiscent of Piranesi’s dungeons.

Photograph by Robin Holland

Multiple Artists

Art in the Anchorage 1

Brooklyn

1983