Nothing Fancy
2029 · monumental high-polish polycarbonate sculpture
- public art
- sculpture
- proposal
- Artist
- Oliver Lardner
- Location
- High Line Plinth, New York · proposal
- Medium
- monumental high-polish polycarbonate sculpture
- Description
Proposal for the High Line Plinth Commission, 2029–30.
The plastic cocktail sword has always conferred prestige. It transforms insignificant acts into ceremonies. My proposed work, Nothing Fancy, takes the form of a monumental plastic cocktail sword. Its high-polish polycarbonate surface reflects and refracts the light, drawing in the city and viewers around it.
The sword brings with it a sense of play and theatrical excess. Both utensil and ornament, the cocktail sword occupies the unusual space between decoration and ceremony, disposability and prestige. This humble post-war consumer object has a history of bestowing tremendous importance onto trivial things. A sandwich becomes an event, a snack into a presentation, and an ordinary drink into “something fancy”. Enlarged to monumental scale, the cocktail sword reveals that even our grandest civic symbols may not be so different from the tiny plastic devices we use to make an ordinary drink feel just a little more special.