and the tomato man takes care of them in empty city New York

Although the Guggenheim’s “Countryside” show was shuttered by the pandemic, its crop of cherry tomatoes is still growing and feeding New Yorkers. In a video, Infinite Acres shows how they realized this project. 

The team with Infinite Acres tells how they realized the growing facility in New York and how they shipped several parts from the Priva company in De Lier, the Netherlands, to the US, combining it with local techniques to finish the growing facility.

Watch the video here.

Though the project has evolved quite unexpectedly due to the COVID outbreak, meaning that the halls of the Guggenheim Museum are pretty quiet these days, with mostly just its ghosts and some security guards as company for the art. Oh, and then there’s the guy who takes care of the tomatoes.

David Litvin, an indoor crop specialist at 80 Acres Farms, tends the plants in a temporarily shuttered exhibition, “Countryside, The Future.” 80 Acres Farms are the growers and operators of the module. He moved to New York from Tel Aviv in February, along with his wife, Stefanie, and their Dutch shepherd, Ester, with a plan to stay six months harvesting the Guggenheim tomatoes. He was going to see the city, too. “I went out once to a comedy bar, but that’s it,” he said to The New York Times.  The museum has been closed since March 13, but Mr. Litvin still walks across Central Park every day around noon from his rental on the Upper West Side to tend to his flock. “When you grow tomatoes on Fifth Avenue, you want to have the perfect tomatoes, there’s no room to mess up,” he said. “If I have ugly plants, I’ll hear it from the neighbors.”

Read more at The New York Times. 

Publication date: Tue 19 May 2020