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This past Monday marked the twenty-second anniversary of 9/11. Not to be outshined by the annual Tribute in Light, the commemorative public art installation honoring the lives lost on 9/11 and the “unbreakable spirit of New York”, Mother Nature embraced the City with a beautiful rainbow we were delighted to witness.
The end of summer in New York is marked by one spectacular event. No, it’s not back-to-school shopping, but the US Open! We enjoyed a few nights at the Open enjoying matches featuring the women’s and men’s number 1’s as well as a late night finish to one of the tournament’s longest matches.
This year’s US Open also marked the Fiftieth Anniversary of its revolutionary decision to provide equal prize money to men and women. In 1973, the US Open became the first Grand Slam tennis tournament to offer equal pay, a feat that is credited to the great Billie Jean King. Ms. King’s efforts on behalf of women tennis players resulted in the New York Times declaring in its July 20, 1973 headline “Tennis Decides All Women Are Created Equal, Too”. If only the rest of the world could operate under this fact!
With its roots planted upon the High Line Plinth and standing twenty-five feet tall at the Spur on 10th Avenue and West 30th Street, Swiss artist Pamela Rosenkranz has cultivated a beaming reddish pink hued tree at the elevated New York City Park. “Old Tree” prompts us to consider the interrelation between human and plant life as its color and shape “resembles the branching systems of human organs, blood vessels, and tissue.” Known for her juxtaposition of what is natural and what is human Ms. Rosenkranz’ “Old Tree” is rooted in such a way “as if the tree would like to leave its planter”, in a quest to escape the urban jungle it will call home for the next eighteen months.
With the expiration of Title 42 on May 11, 2023, we thought it apt to share the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver April 30, 2023 episode “Biden and the Border” which examines President Biden’s failure to deliver on a key campaign promise to asylum seekers allowing them back on US soil to file for asylum. The British-American comedian, political commentator, and television host, appropriately notes “we’re just entering a different phase of an immigration dystopia, particularly for asylum seekers.” Mr. Oliver shines a light on the administration’s “bad policy and s*itty apps”, namely the “CBP One” app.
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A modern-day Renaissance Man, Ai Weiwei, the renowned artist, activist, filmmaker, architect and collector, has collaborated with The Design Museum in London, to present “Making Sense” as “a commentary on design and what it reveals about our changing values.” The artist’s collection of objects, ranging from Stone Age tools to porcelain dating back to the Song dynasty, to iPhones and Lego bricks to recreate Monet’s Water Lilies, explore our material culture and tensions between construction and destruction as well as industrialism and craftsmanship. “Making Sense” of the dichotomy of consumption and the repression of the individual, Weiwei challenges us to make sense of our own values and the repression of the individual, all the while giving the middle finger to landmarks known as sites of power around the world.
Saturday, May 6th, 2023, will mark King Charles III’s Coronation. Although Charles became King the moment his mother, Queen Elizabeth II died, this coronation is a celebration and the formal investiture of Charles with his regal powers. Rooted in pageantry and traditions dating back a thousand years, “Operation Golden Orb” as the Coronation is aptly code-named, has been in the works for months and London is getting ready for its close up as the ceremony will be televised throughout world. Preparations have sprouted up along The Mall leading to the King’s residence at Buckingham Palace and as if on cue blossoms have filled St. James’ Park.
In London’s Berkeley Square, 90” Triacontahedron by Anthony James beckons the passerby. A British-American artist, based in Los Angeles, Mr. James uses specialized glass, LED, and steel to draw spectators into his work. Hailed as of one of the world’s leading light artists, he incorporates an array of industrial objects, vitrines of steel, aluminum, and waste and debris, to illuminate and reflect on themes of light and dark, death, destruction, and rebirth in his brilliant pieces. As light and color frolic within the panels of the sculpture, 90” Triacontahedron transports us to another dimension, even on the greyest of London days.
Trafalgar Square, one of London’s most visited landmarks, is marked by four plinths, upon which rests three permanent sculptures. For years an empty fourth plinth stood until Dame Prue Leith, then chair of the Royal Society of Arts suggested the plinth should host art work. After much debate, the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Programme was born, hosting contemporary sculptures on rotation. Recently, Samson Kambalu, a renowned contemporary artist and author who hails from Malawi and is based in Oxford won the opportunity to exhibit under the Fourth Plinth Programme, resulting in “Antelope.”
Based on a photograph of Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist, John Chilembwe, and European missionary, John Chorley, taken in 1914 at the opening Chilembwe’s new church in Nyasaland, now Malawi, “Antelope” commemorates the moment by restaging the photograph. Kambalu portrays Chilembwe larger than life upon the plinth as he keeps his hat on, in defiance of the colonial rule forbidding Africans from wearing hats in front of white people. Chorley maintains life-size, thereby elevating Chilembwe’s story and bringing awareness to the “hidden narratives of underrepresented peoples” and calling attention to “distortions in conventional narratives of the British empire.”
As we celebrate Black History Month, we look upon the work of artist, curator, community facilitator, and educator Faheem Majeed, a modern-day Renaissance Man who creates works of art focused on institutional critique and cultural experiences. Mr. Majeed’s current installation on display at The High Line “Freedom’s Stand” pays homage to Freedom’s Journal, the first Black-owned-and operated newspaper in New York City that was launched in 1827 to counter act existing newspapers at the time that encouraged slavery and attacked African Americans. Drawing inspiration from a range of renowned, community driven work including Chicago’s Wall of Respect and the Community Mural Movement, the artist’s sculpture, modeled after West Mali’s Dogon Tribe granaries, exhibits a sampling of headlines, photographs, ads, and articles from historical and present day Black newspapers. The monthly changing content educates spectators on vital issues, as Freedom’s Journal educated the Black community hundreds of years ago.
At Galerie Templon in NYC, we stepped into Berlin-based, Japanese artist, Chiharu Shiota’s ethereal installation “Signs of Life”. Creating the large-scale installation on site over two weeks by weaving knotted threads, Ms. Shiota transports us into a web where the woven threads create dreamlike scenes that explore and question the idea of the “web” as a living organism akin to the neurons in our brains. As if stepping into another dimension, we are faced with pages torn out of books and the artist’s own bronzed arms entwined within the webs which “represent the treasures offered up by memory, to be seen but not touched.” As we wonder amidst the spectacular installations and sculptures, we are prompted into our own recollections, the pages torn out of our own life stories.
