NEW YORK, NY.- Creative Time presented its new public art quadrennial: PLOT, taking place on historic Governors Island and featuring international artists responding to the island with new, sire-responsive artworks. The first edition, entitled This World & Nearer Ones, is curated by Mark Beasley. PLOT09 will draw thousands to Governors Island to explore the artwork and numerous other public programs. PLOT09 is free and open to the public.

This World & Nearer Ones intervenes in the architectural and natural fabric of the island, transforming its historic buildings and vast lawns—from the iconic Fort Jay to St. Cornelius Chapel—through installation, performance, video, and auditory works, inviting audiences to reconsider the island’s past and future.

PLOT09 features artists from 9 different countries, including Edgar Arceneaux, AA Bronson and Peter Hobbs, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Adam Chodzko, Tue Greenfort, Jill Magid, Teresa Margolles, Anthony McCall, Nils Norman, Susan Philipsz, Patti Smith and Jesse Smith, Tercerunquinto, Tris Vonna-Michell, Mark Wallinger, Klaus Weber, Lawrence Weiner, Judi Werthein, Guido van der Werve, and Krzysztof Wodiczko, realizing temporary projects in various sites throughout Governors Island.

Creative Time opened 5 buildings not usually accessible to the public, and artwork activate other historic buildings and the verdant green spaces of the island that was one of the first settlements of the Dutch West India Company in 1624, a strategic coastal fortification in the early 1800s for the new American military, and home to a 1988 summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Artists react to its close proximity to Lower Manhattan’s Financial District, the Statue of Liberty, and Brooklyn and New Jersey’s waterfronts with ephemeral, site-specific works.

The island—which sits in New York Harbor just off the southern tip of Manhattan and is accessible by a free ferry—is a place that is coming back to life. With more than 128,000 visitors in 2008 and a projected 200,000 visitors in 2009, Governors Island is poised for rebirth as a major cultural destination.

“We are thrilled to give New Yorkers and visitors to the city a major project that will be free and open to all,” says Anne Pasternak, President and Artistic Director of Creative Time. “PLOT will be a timeless investigation of ideas and site on a grand scale.”

Visitors are able to enjoy self-guided walks and bike rides around This World & Nearer Ones as well as docent-led tours. An associated program will be presented, with special activities throughout the run of the show. Free ferries depart Manhattan regularly throughout the summer, Friday to Sunday.

Originally used as a fishing destination for local American Indian tribes, the island was settled by Europeans in 1624. Since then, it has seen waves of occupation and desertion, housing the US Army and finally the Coast Guard before falling into disuse. Inspired by a richly layered past and a future that has yet to be realized, artists will be responding to some of the most iconic landmarks and historic buildings on the island.