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John Knight
87°, 1997-99

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John Knight American, (b.1945)

87°, 1997-99 ; steel painted silver, over 100' tall

By placing a high powered telescope south of the museum building and directing it towards the single-unit water tower of the nearby Star Expansion Company, the artist has conceptually annexed the tower to the Storm King collection. The founders of Storm King purchased the water tower in 1958, choosing the monumentally scaled utilitarian object as much for its form as for its function. Inspired by the beauty of the tower and seeing its purchase as foreshadowing the later efforts of both H. Peter Stern and Ralph E. Ogden, more than forty years later, Knight chose to direct the viewer's gaze towards it as a modern symbol of the relationship between economics, philanthropy and aesthetics.

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