These Are The Absolute Weirdest Pieces Of Art In NYC

Katherine Ripley • April 22, 2016

New York City wouldn’t be complete without its bizarre art projects. You often wonder how much money people are making for these things. Could I turn a yogurt carton inside out and put it on display? Has anyone tried?

Anyways, here are the weirdest of the weird art pieces in NYC:

1. The “Sleepwalker” that just came to the High Line

#Sleepwalker a hyper-realistic sculpture by #TonyMatelli is already gaining attention on the High Line. #Wanderlust pic.twitter.com/5ZOyAL2mh7

— High Line (@highlinenyc) April 19, 2016

The High Line has a new art exhibit called “Wanderlust” and it features a scarily realistic sculpture of a bald man sleep walking in his underwear. It’s unclear what the statement is. Is it a portrait of vulnerability, or is the artist saying that everyone in this city is sleep walking?

2. OY/YO in Brooklyn Bridge Park

A photo posted by BBC Travel (@bbc_travel) on Mar 22, 2016 at 12:18pm PDT

This sculpture actually has a pretty clever concept. If you’re standing in Manhattan and looking at it, it says “Yo,” and if you’re standing in Brooklyn looking at Manhattan, it says “Oy.” Whether it’s some kind of commentary on different ethnic groups is up for debate. The artist herself says the meaning of the piece is best left up to individual interpretation.

3. That sideways swimming pool in Rockefeller Center

The piece is apparently called “Van Gogh’s Ear,” as if it’s supposed to represent the ear that Van Gogh cut off because he was a complete whack job. Why the artists chose a swimming pool to represent the ear is a complete mystery—perhaps they have a weird fantasy about swimming in Van Gogh’s brain.

4 .The Earth Room in Soho

The Earth Room is literally just a room full of dirt—280,000 pounds of it. It’s just been sitting in Soho ever since 1977. Nothing grows in it, except for the occasional mushrooms, because it’s watered once a week to keep it damp. If this is some sort of statement about environmentalism, you really have to wonder how much water has been used to keep this dirt wet for the last four decades.

5. A museum in a freight elevator

This isn’t just one piece of art—it’s a museum. But the whole museum is housed inside one freight elevator. It specializes in the “overlooked, dismissed, or ignored.” Its collection rotates. Among its featured items have been toothpaste tubes, potato chip bags, umbrellas, and money. Are we just being trolled with this one?

Cover photo credit: Quan Zeng/Flickr