Inspired by the richness and variety of the High Line, and its overall effect on the Chelsea neighborhood and the city itself, Jennifer Williams created a series of collages composed of digital photographs of the area that she manually pieced together. Eschewing traditional frames, she decided to install these works, which vary widely in shape and size, in such a way that they seemed to grow out of the gallery's ceiling, floor, and walls.
In fact, the collages often appeared to tumble to life, like so many angular, sculpted creatures. One of them, called 7000 Oaks to Tenth Avenue Square, was so large that it looked like a dinosaur about to take a stroll, while another, Approaching Hudson Yards (both 2013), hung from the ceiling like a plane caught mid-takeoff. Running through all of the works was the path of the elevated park, like the spines of the various creatures that Williams invented. The buildings almost overwhelm the green foliage in the images, much the same way they do in real life.
But as these works make apparent, amenities like the High Line are inevitably accompanied by increased development and higher rents. Williams's exuberant and attractive collages comment cogently on the ambiguous impact of the High Line.
The gallery also included a set of the artist's unrelated collages. Boxes #2 (2012) is particularly sensual, with layers of brown paper, varying in tone, folded and bent and squeezed together. These works beg viewers to touch them and glide their fingers across the surfaces, giving them an opportunity to sense Williams's emotional states.
—Valerie Gladstone