Art exhibition shows legacies of deceased New Yorkers

The end was just the beginning for this art exhibition in Brooklyn.

The belongings of dozens of deceased New Yorkers—ranging from the mundane to the incredibly moving—are on display at Green-Wood Cemetery’s Fort Hamilton Gatehouse as part of artist-in-residence Adam Tendler’s latest exhibition, “Exit Strategy.”

Clothes, friendship bracelets, VHS tapes and even underwear are some of the items once left to the bereaved and donated to the project.

The exhibition features fragments of a forgotten personal story scattered across a piano, accompanied by handwritten notes from loved ones on the wall describing them.

Tendler, also a pianist and composer, told The Washington Post that his father’s recent death was the inspiration for the exhibition, which explores the “accidental legacies” that people inherit.

“The question that hangs over the project and that it seeks to explore is basically, ‘What have I been given that I didn’t ask for?'” Tendler said.

“Sometimes we are left with these accidental inheritances that are not given to us, but that we just have,” he said. “They can be physical objects, but also psychological, emotional artifacts like memories – things that were said, smells, sounds. All of these can come to us by chance.”

The artist, a Vermont native who lives in Brooklyn, began the project by bringing in clothes from people he had lost.

“Especially my father’s clothes. The only things I have of his are underwear, socks and some of his pajamas,” said Tendler.

He later managed to obtain materials for the project by putting out a call through the cemetery’s various email systems – which put him in touch with a network of bereavement groups and regular cemetery visitors over the course of the spring and summer.

Tendler then met each donor personally to hear their story.

“One teacher brought in a shell that was about 30 years old and belonged to one of her students, who was probably about 10 years old and was diagnosed with AIDS as a child,” Tendler said. “He went on a ‘Make a Wish’ trip and brought her a shell that she had kept for decades, and she brought it into the installation to release it in a way.”

Although the exhibition’s goal is to part with the items, Tendler offered the teacher a rare opportunity to retrieve the bowl after the exhibition’s climax next month.

“She had to remind me of the purpose of what I was doing,” Tendler said. “She said, ‘No, I’m actually ready to let this go.'”

The teacher’s shell hangs on the wall along with underpants and a striped shirt, while a three-hour loop of original music composed by Tendler plays somberly in the background.

“At Green-Wood, we build relationships with contemporary artists,” said Harry Weil, Green-Wood’s vice president of education and public programs, in a statement.

“In turn, their art helps us build relationships with our community. During his year at the cemetery, Adam truly understood the history of the Green-Wood and its role as a place where people seek solace.”

Tendler admitted that his installation looked a bit like a “crime scene.”

“I’m interested in this paradox and this opposition, because our thoughts and experiences are chaotic,” he said. “They are not black and white, and this installation lives between beautiful and chaotic and frightening and raw.”

“Exit Strategy” is open to the public at Green-Wood Cemetery from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. through August 25.

Tendler also has an “exit strategy” for the exhibits: he will keep all handwritten letters and put the individual physical objects to another use.

“I was pretty skeptical at first,” Tendler said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to destroy everything, that’s part of it.’ But then I met the people and heard these stories, and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can do that to this object.’

“Either I keep (the items) as my accidental inheritance or I find a place for them, but they will not be destroyed.”