The BMW Guggenheim Lab came and went from Manhattan’s Lower East Side without much incident but now the Berlin leg of the Atelier Bow-Wow-designed structure’s world tour is being cancelled because of what organizers are claiming are threats of violence from left-wing anarchist groups.
BMW Guggenheim
Posted inArt
Roberta’s and the BMW Guggenheim Lab: A Comparison
Roberta’s, that beloved Bushwick pizza joint, has been tapped to run the cafe at the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a pop-up urban think tank of sorts that opened earlier this month on a narrow, otherwise forgotten plot of land on East First Street owned by the Department of Parks & Recreation.
Posted inArt
How Comfortable Are You in the City, Really?
Can anyone ever be truly comfortable in New York? I’ve lived here my whole life and still feel the daily stresses of subway rides, traffic, overcrowding and of course insanely high prices (tickets to MoMA cost $25 now?). These Manhattan blues are part of the reason I was both intrigued and skeptical of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a pop-up event space in the East Village that will present a series of lectures, film screenings and interactive programs all based around the idea of confronting comfort in our cities and urban development. With corporate sponsoring shoved right into its very title, I wondered if the Lab would stick to a privileged, glossy view of urbanization or actually offer legitimate “solutions for city life,” as the program’s website states. Even the word “comfort” suggested to me that these solutions would be targeted only towards a particular social class who has the resources to take advantage of them.