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# Art, Music, Film Celebrities Write a Letter to Mayor Bloomberg About the Rockaways
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/art-music-film-celebrities-write-a-letter-to-mayor-bloomberg-about-the-rockaways/
- Published: 2012-11-03T20:13:07.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:18:48.000Z
- Description: One cluster of the New York art world A-list have contributed their bold-faced name power to an open letter addressed to New York Mayor Bloomberg. The vague letter highlights the plight of the Rockaways while explaining that the letter is to "support the city in your amazing, monumental efforts in a
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: News, Hurricane Sandy, Klaus Biesenbach, Michael Bloomberg, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/11/6_the-rockaway-penisula-map-320.jpg "6_the-rockaway-penisula-map-320")](http://www.thebungalowsofrockaway.com/index.php?/project/maps/&ref=hyperallergic.com)

One cluster of the New York art world A-list have contributed their bold-faced name power to [an open letter addressed to New York Mayor Bloomberg](https://twitter.com/klausbiesenbach/status/264806774207574016?ref=hyperallergic.com). The vague letter highlights the plight of the Rockaways while explaining that the signatories “support the city in your amazing, monumental efforts in all boroughs to save our city and to encourage the creative communities in New York to invent exemplary ways of helping out neighbors and fellow New Yorkers!”

The Rockaways in Queens have been hard hit by post-tropical cyclone Sandy and MoMAPS1 director Klaus Biesenbach has been tweeting about the area all week:

> i feel like hurricane SANdy KATRINA swept my house and garden away….i cannot get there… i have no way to see the damage…  
>  
> — Klaus Biesenbach (@klausbiesenbach) [October 30, 2012](https://twitter.com/klausbiesenbach/status/263380241307795456?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=hyperallergic.com)

He also wrote [a Facebook appeal three days after the storm](https://www.facebook.com/MoMAPS1/posts/10151133166232496) to “consider MoMA PS1 a HOME and a SHELTER during this time of difficulty in New York. MoMA PS1 will be open to the community.”

The “Open Letter to Encourage Mutual Citizen Support” is signed by a long list of artists, including Marina Abramović, Doug Aitken, Laurel Nakadate, Cindy Sherman, and Ryan Trecartin, and it includes the names of pop stars like Lady Gaga and Madonna, and movie people like Gus Van Sant and Gwyneth Paltrow.

This is the current version of the Open Letter, which was emailed to Hyperallergic from Biesenbach on Monday, November 5:

**Open Letter to Encourage Mutual Citizen Support**

New York City Artists Unite to Support the Rockaways and the Flooded Areas of New York City

Dear Mayor Bloomberg and All Fellow New Yorkers,

The Rockaways geographically, as you know, are the area that is breaking the waves between the Atlantic Ocean and JFK Airport and New York City in general. Demographically, it is very diverse and not a privileged area.

In recent years, the Rockaways became an incredible inspiration and haven for the artists and creative community of New York. As the Rockaways are, at their best, a melting pot between the local community and the creative energies of the city, it is a location where New York is anticipating and creating the images and dreams we all live on.

Hurricane Sandy completely devastated the peninsula, and a couple of days after the storm, families with children are still standing next to their destroyed and ruined houses trying to keep warm without food, water, electricity, heat, or internet.

The artistic community is sending you this letter to support the city in your amazing, monumental efforts in all boroughs to save our city and to encourage the creative communities in New York to invent exemplary ways of helping our neighbors and fellow New Yorkers!  
Respectfully yours,

Marina Abramović  
Doug Aitken  
Francis Alÿs  
Darren Aronofsky  
Tauba Auerbach  
Matthew Barney  
Klaus Biesenbach  
Adrien Brody  
Giada Colagrande  
Francisco Costa  
Anthony D. Curcio Jr.  
Willem Dafoe  
Anna Deavere Smith  
Roe Ethridge  
James Franco  
Lady Gaga  
Antony Hegarty  
Jonathan Horowitz  
Spike Jonze  
Nicole Kidman  
Steven Klein  
Terence Koh  
Padma Lakshmi  
Madonna  
Laurel Nakadate  
Gwyneth Paltrow  
Richard Phillips  
Jonathan Pierce  
Rob Pruitt  
Terry Richardson  
Rockaway Artists Alliance  
Cynthia Rowley  
Cindy Sherman  
Jenny Shimizu  
Patti Smith  
Michael Stipe  
Mickalene Thomas  
Ryan Trecartin  
Liv Tyler  
Gus Van Sant  
Martha Wainwright  
Rufus Wainwright  
Rachel Weisz  
Italo Zuchelli

Here is the original letter via Biensenbach’s Twitterfeed:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/11/open-letter-to-encourage-mutual-citizen-support-640.jpg "Open-Letter-to-Encourage-Mutual-Citizen-Support-640")