The New Yorker has taken the increasing economic segregation of our city and visualized it.
New York City
Posted inArt
Photographs Turn New York City into a Stage for Humanity
Like so many people who come to New York, part of what attracted me was the spectacle of the city itself. I wanted to wander streets thick with history and creative currents, to watch and become part of the human drama just outside my door. That also describes my experience of Susan Wides’s stunning new project All the Worlds, a series of nine sensuous, panoramic photographs that capture the fluid beauty of New York City’s theatrum mundi. It is on these stages that Wides sees our very human need to align with the poetry of our collective spirits and to reclaim our humanity in the face of co-opting consumerist and political forces.
Posted inOpinion
The Man Who Led 1990s Art Censorship Scandal Is Running for NYC Mayor
The name Joseph J. Lhota may not be a household one (yet), but the current Republican mayoral candidate has done a lot in his time in New York City politics. Art worlders may remember him as the man who led the Giuliani administration’s push to bully the Brooklyn Museum into censoring an artwork from the Sensation exhibition.
Posted inArt
See the Streets of New York in Slow Motion
It’s amazing to watch slow-motion, high-definition video of a bird take flight. The feathers ruffle in succession like a ripple moving across waves, and the wings flap in an exaggerated but seemingly effortless motion. The whole display is fairly awe-inspiring and beautiful — even if the bird in question is a pigeon.
Posted inOpinion
New York’s Outdated Payphones Will Become Sleek, Digital Kiosks
The winners of a city-sponsored contest to redesign New York’s payphones have been announced, and it looks like the clunky yet iconic — and these days, often broken — booths of decades past will soon be replaced by slim, digital screens offering wifi, summaries of weather conditions, a chance to pay your parking tickets, and much more.
Posted inOpinion
Imagining the Payphones of the Future
I suspect everyone who’s wandered around New York — or any major city, really — has had the experience of walking past a payphone and wondering about its fate. Public phones often strike me as the ultimate objects in transition, relics from a pre-digital age dotting the cityscape. It may be a coincidental sign of the times that the vendor contracts for New York City’s more than 11,000 (!) payphones will expire next year.
Posted inArt
The Impossibility of Documenting New York City
Like most people (I assume), I had heard about Humans of New York in passing, with a share on Facebook or a retweet on Twitter, but until recently, I wasn’t actually following the blog. Then I found myself looking at a portrait one day — I don’t remember which — and being overwhelmed by its simultaneous focus and tenderness. I realized I wanted these pictures to pop up in my Facebook and Twitter feeds all the time.
Posted inArt
Occupy Barclays Street Art
Anonymous anti-Barclays street art appears at the newly coined Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center subway stop in Brooklyn.
Posted inArt
Taking a Bite of Lucky Peach: The Art of Food
Lucky Peach debut issue (mcsweeneys.net/luckypeach) It only takes one look at the cover of the debut issue of Lucky Peach to realize that this isn’t your typical food ‘zine. No glossy photo of an impeccably styled dish here; instead, there’s a dead chicken being held unceremoniously upside down by its feet, its pale, thin, pocky […]
Posted inArt
How Ai Weiwei Saw New York City
Ever wondered what New York City looks like through the eyes of a great artist? In a newly opened exhibition at Asia Society, viewers get the chance to see how recently released Chinese artist Ai Weiwei saw New York City in a series of diaristic photos taken between 1983 and 1993.
Posted inArt
A Tour of the High Line’s New Section 2
Section 2 of the High Line, an elevated railway running down Manhattan’s Tenth Avenue renovated by architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro that has quickly become an urban design icon, opens to the public today. But visitors to the park yesterday were greeted with a soft-opening preview, complete with popsicle vendors, public art projects and plenty of opportunities to lounge in the grass. The new section may not cause as much stir as the launch of the first, but the 10-block stretch from 20th to 30th street is full of subtle surprises, from flyover walkways to hidden forests.
Posted inArt
Port Authority’s Human Side in a 24 Hour Performance
When I caught performance artist Man Bartlett around 4:30 pm EST yesterday, he had been in New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal for 23 and a half hours straight. Beginning on Wednesday, May 25 at 5 pm and continuing through 5 pm on May 26, the “#24hPort” performance saw the artist occupy both virtual and physical space, wandering through Port Authority and asking visitors where they were going, at the same time tweeting about the experience and asking Twitter participants about their memories of where they had been.
