Sheen Center to Present MANHATTAN MEASURE Multi-Medium Art Exhibit

The Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Center for Thought and Culture (www.SheenCenter.org), located at 18 Bleecker Street, is proud to announce a new multi-medium art exhibit, MANHATTAN MEASURE, featuring the work of Gene Schmidt, who measured the length and width of Manhattan, using red yardsticks.

Schmidt used nearly 30,000 individual yardsticks -- each one only once -- in a ritual of numbering and preparing the yardsticks, laying them down, picking them up, and stacking them to create the cruciform on exhibit in the Sheen Center gallery. The act of creation became part sculpture, part performance and part pilgrimage. In his quest to tell his own story through sculpture, Schmidt meandered through, past, and sometimes right up against some of the thousands of other stories taking place all over the streets of Manhattan. Schmidt's journey was documented by the photographer Alicia Hansen and the filmmakers Johnny Gerhart and Philip Armand, which are also part of the display. Hansen's series of photographs portray the artist at work, but also peek into the lives of some of the individuals whose paths Schmidt crossed. Gerhart and Armand captured the spirit of the project on video, allowing those who may not wish to undertake such a journey on their own to experience some of its dimensions.

The exhibition, which runs through Sunday, April 3rd, is something of a love letter to the city, from its glittering core to the people on the periphery, at once reflective and celebratory.

The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, located at 18 Bleecker Street, is a project of the Archdiocese of New York with the mission showcasing works in the performing and visual arts, lectures and symposia that highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages. The Sheen Center complex encompasses 2 Theaters, 4 rehearsal studios and an Art Gallery.

For more information, visit www.sheencenter.org, or follow on Facebook: www.facebook.com/sheencenter and Twitter: @SheenCenter.