MetLife

March 30, 1995

Climbing performance by Irina Danilova
Part of the Project 59 (flip of last digits of that year) and adaptation to the high rises
of the city during Irina's first year in New York. Video recording was first shown at the
Cleveland Performance Art Festival as part of performance EXODUS and later at the
National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow.

Performed, recorded and edited by Irina Danilova

MetLife (exodus) history of performance by Irina Danilova

MetLife (originaly Pan Am) was “one of the first world’s largest office buildings”.
The idea to climb 59 floors came soon after I arrived in New York in the middle of
1994, but how could I figure out back then which skyscraper had 59 stories? Manual
counting of floors in random buildings did not work. Asking doormen in different
buildings did not reach the goal. A friend suggested contacting the Chief Architect
for New York City, but the tour book happened to be found sooner. When I first
arrived at the MetLife building and asked a guard about a stairway he escorted me
to the management administration office. The more I tried to explain why I needed
to climb their stairs the less they understood, and finally I was asked to submit
a written letter of request. LuLu LoLo at the School of Visual Arts MFA office,
where I was a first-year graduate student, printed a nice letter with a formal SVA
letterhead. I mailed it and received back a formal rejection. Then I went back to
MetLife and with no question asked took one of the elevators, stopping on each floor.
There was no immediate front desk with the same “may I help you?” only on the 58th
floor. I sneaked through the empty hallway and found my reward - a door to the
stairs. NO RE-ENTRY was the sign on the door. On March 30th, 1995, I brought a
friend to MetLife’s 58th floor to re-open the stairway door for me in 3 hours.
I did not know how long the climb was going to be. First, I had to walk down 58
floors to start from the bottom. When I reached the first floor, my doubts doubled
but there was no option for retreat. With video camera in my hands in a deserted
stairway that was used only for housekeeping purposes, I started to quietly climb,
as a spy. There was only one short stop around the 6th floor when someone entered
the stairs one flight above and quickly disappeared clinking with keys. The stairway
was used by internal staff, and I was lucky that they were busy outside. The
perception of New York City is divided into two categories: love and hate. One of
the common reasons for hatred was feeling tiny and worthless among enormous
urban giants. Climbing one of them was an artistic adaptation, overcoming the
immense proportions (vertical exodus) and being minimized by an imperial
environment. Trapped on the top of the locked stairway for two hours while waiting
for my friend to come back and open the door, “a spy” turned into the “King of the World.”