The High Line. It is a gift to New Yorkers. A real chance for us to crawl out of our cramped apartments, unravel from our tiny office chairs and stretch our limbs in the open airy space. An opportunity to take in the bright blue sky with our eyes, a little bit closer too it than the ground, breathing fresh(ish) air and enjoying an open space. So artist David Byrne decided to squash and stuff a giant work of art underneath it! "Tight Spot," is a piece installed under the High Line at 25th street, in The Pace Gallery's newly acquired space. Here we see the world in a cage, a globe squashed to fit within the confines of a steel cage, about to explode. Reminiscent of your grade school classroom globe, its bright colors and soft stretchy texture contrast with the hard solid gray metal of the high line's support beams. Its juxtaposition to dirty rusty car garages makes for an additional beauty in contrast. As you approach the space at 25th street, it becomes apparent that you hear "Tight Spot" before you see it. This seems appropriate for the Byrne, who may be better known by the public as the former front-man of the band The Talking Heads. The audio component has been described as a foreboding "womp womp" sound. But it's more curious that that. Emitting a number of deep rumbles, it first sounds like the pluckings of a bass, as if a bassist were tuning up before a rock concert -- that exciting echo you hear in anticipation of your favorite band about to take the stage. From above the High Line, it sounds as though someone captured a magical and mysterious creature down below. The sound actually comes from speakers inside the smushed globe is audio engineered sound of Byrne's own voice. “Rather than try to get it electronically or find instruments to do it, I just made the sounds with my mouth and filtered them enough so that you can’t tell it’s a human voice,” Byrne told New York Magazine. I can't imagine what this piece must look like to unsuspecting passerby's. I imagine someone walking past it alone on a quiet day. As I walked away from it, still able to hear it as I headed home, I felt excited. The world was right there, to me, bursting with exciting, peculiar and inquisitive sounds. Terri Ciccone is the founder and editor of Contrapposto Blog and an Art Ruby contributor [gallery order="DESC" orderby="ID"]

Nick Cave's, For Now at the Mary Boone gallery is shocking. When you turn the corner to see the artist’s work, you stammer back in surprise. The gallery-goers are treated to about 30 "people" frozen in playful positions, covered in wild, colorful and magnificent costumes. These costumes, or as he calls them, "soundsuits" are appropriately named considering if worn, which they can be, they would rustle and buzz with the sounds of their materials. Some are made from baskets and sticks, others are made from what looks like anything that could be found in a kids play pen or someone’s garage: small globes, pot holders, birdcages, quilts with cartoon characters, stuffed animals, and glitter. Nick Cave is African and the pieces have a tribal colorful celebratory feel. As you'll see in the video below, the pieces enhance what seems to be tribal or African style dances. They all have a sense of movement even though they are frozen in place. Seeing as all of the pieces are full body costumes, (they cover the face, the feet, legs and arms) they erase all identity. But perhaps they erase identity in a positive way, a way of reducing any judgment on any "type" of person that could be treated differently or poorly. Instead, they become a sort of joyous theater, a theater of equals, a theater of “psychedelic, functified freak show that is an accumulation of the decades from the perspective of voodoo woo-loo.” Check it out in action below. Terri Ciccone is the founder and editor of Contrapposto Blog and an Art Ruby contributor [gallery order="DESC" orderby="ID"]

Rich Hendry is currently exhibiting his latest works at Sky Lounge, London.