Strip Poker Art Installation “I’ll Raise You One” in TriBeCa
What do you have to lose…besides your clothes?
Seven poker players will attempt the full-Monty game of luck and skill this weekend in Tri-beca.
Believe it or not, an art installation entitled, “I’ll Raise You One” will feature a series of strip poker game players in a TriBeCa storefront gallery called Art in General.
Artist Zefrey Throwell, known for his other nudity with a tudie demonstration caused a big stir in August with “Ocularpation”.
Throwell orchestrated dozens of people dressed up as ordinary people you would find walking around Wall Street on any given work day and then unlike any other work day on Wall Street, had them strip simultaneously…naked.
“Then after you get over that, you start to wonder: What the hell are they doing?”
So the person you though was a banker, secretary and even neighborhood hot dog vendor, peeled it all off in broad daylight, on Wall Street, on cue, for a cause… Throwell’s cause.
“Wealth is unequally distributed — yet we’re all expected to play by the same rules,” Throwell said. “It’s a political and economic criticism.”
“Playing until Saturday, this exhibit is sure to get more then a fleeting glance. Throwell is hoping people will watch as the players, himself included, gamble their clothes away as a pathway to understanding what his inspiration is.
“In a world where money has taken supreme importance and all functions of life are commoditized, I’ll Raise You One… is a project where clothing, charisma and a good bluff are the only currency.”
Huh?
Has Mr. Throwell tried to pay his rent lately with clothing, charisma or a good bluff?
The plan is to have seven-and-a-half hours of non-stop poker playing each day for a full week, as soon as one game ends, the cast redresses and a new game begins immediately.
Fully visible from the street, the poker players will consist of both men and women.
“At first it’s kind of titillating — ‘Oooh, it’s strip poker’,” said Throwell, 35, a Brooklyn resident. “Then after you get over that, you start to wonder: What the hell are they doing?”
After three arrests at the last usage of nudity as a political statement, Throwell expects to be left alone by authorities stating that this time the demonstrators plan to keep the message inside with curious onlookers giving them the attention they seem so desperate to obtain outside.
“It’s legal to walk around your own home naked,” he said.
