EJ Hill Wants to Take You on a Ride
It was a Friday night in central New Jersey, and the artist EJ Hill had me doing high-speed upside-down corkscrews as we rode the Green Lantern, a somewhat demonic roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure that seems designed to reshuffle your organs.
For me, in deep middle age, this was my first roller coaster. For Hill, 37, his umpteenth. He’s a coaster aficionado. Coaster toys littered his childhood bedroom in South Central Los Angeles. He knows an inline twist from a heartline roll. He loves wooden coasters of yore and high-tech insanities like the X2, with seats out on wings that flip you over and over as you go.
Coasters aren’t just a hobby for Hill. They’re a recurring motif in his performance art, photography, painting and sculpture. “Brake Run Helix,” his exhibition opening Oct. 30 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) for an 18-month run, has a coaster theme and a spectacular centerpiece: a working coaster inside the museum for visitors to ride.
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the New York Times website. Read more about EJ Hill.
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