Art Around Town

I have walked and lounged at the Highline a few times and have always thought it to be very pleasant but this time I totally took in so many more details that make the park such a great addition to the city in consideration with its past and what used to be in the Highline’s place.

Throught the park, resting chairs are set directly on top or of the old tracks. These chairs have an organic design out of slates of wood that have the same tones than the floors and the view space. This informs you of the history of this location, it being an old train track. As well from such view point, being above street level, you can feel like walking over the city, as cars dive by directly below you and even entire buildings lay below. The way the area and the architecture of the neighborhood has evolved is clearly observed from the Highline. There is a good contrast between prewar buildings and old New York buildings to ultra modern 21st century pieces, this in a way also speaks of the evolution of the city and the neighborhood, with now some buildings even having rooftop gardens, a new addition to sustainable design. Some buildings are so close to the Highline that you can literally look inside people’s apartments and office spaces, this allows you to feel closer to the lives of many other New Yorkers.

Another interesting part of this contrast and evolution visible at the highline is that you can see low income housing developments from the early 20th century which are still inhabited by low income New Yorkers really near to buildings only the most wealthy can live in. This gives you a whole idea of how much the neighborhood has changed from being a work neighborhood for the meatpacking industry to an exclusive and very wealthy area.

The highline allows you to see the city from a different perspective since some paths along the way you are seeing buildings that are so close to it that you can touch them but at a height that otherwise you would never be able to.
As well the highline deals with the natural passage of time as they have allowed plants to grow on their own way and only plants that have naturally grown here . Some art pieces along the way also are characterized by the natural effect that the weather will and have give them trough the years since they were brought into the park .

A few buildings even incorporate art in their external walls or patios and make it visible to the highline public such as a mural aroun 16th street made out of mirrored glass and rotten iron.

I think this park is an excellent use of old abandoned city infrastructure that has created an exit to meatpacking district employees to go and walk and have lunch in its garden and to so many tourists and locals alike.

For more info visit thehighline.org

I had the opportunity of attending the play “Sleep No More”, a recent addition to works of theater in New York City. In the neighborhood of Chelsea, in what seems to be an abandoned warehouse space, lays the site-specific stage for this play that takes you traveling back to the early 20^th century. The space is a 5-story warehouse that has been designed to represent a hotel of the early 20^th century, the McKittrick Hotel, as it is called in the play. However, this is not your regular hotel, there are cemeteries, insane asylums, orphanages, doctor and chemical offices, in addition to, what seems to be the only typical part of a hotel, the lobby and hotel bar and café. As an attendee, you are usually separated from your group in order for you to experience the play on your own. All floors are open for one to explore, search through, read and look for things, which makes the experience super interactive and inclusive. Through every floor you will also encounter the actors, doing a scene in random spaces and you are just a couple of feet away, can follow them through their scene, and sometimes can even interact with them.

The play is intended to recreate Macbeth, by Shakespeare, but definitely draws influence from so many contemporary and 20^th century artists and filmmakers. The scenery is spooky, creepy, dark, oaky, grimy. So many different feelings by the scent, sounds or lack thereof, and objects present in each room that you can feel anything from happiness and comfort to scare and depression.  The scenes are for you to encounter on your own, and depends on where you are at a specific time. This is really fascinating because it creates an experience that wont be repeated twice, one can go back on another time and be sure to see different scenes and different momentum.

Another part about this play that makes it so entertaining to see is how interactive it is. As explained above the actors may reach for you to touch them, talk to you, grab you, and in one scene even dress them. This level of intimacy with the actors improves the experience as a whole since it really creates an organic connection between spectator and performer. The entire play becomes part of your own sensorial experience and you are an actor in it, it changes the typical theater experience completely. Sleep No More is definitely one play not to miss.

For Tickets head to http://sleepnomorenyc.com/

The Gugghenheim museum is one of my favorite museums to visit as a result of the unusual shape and organic progression that is to look at the exhibitions curated at the museum. Although a very big museum, it is not close to the size of the Metropolitan. However, located close by, and in one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces, the Gugghenheim is so easy to explore since the attendees can walk around the spiral shape of the building either up and down and have the chance to explore the entire exhibitions without asking for directions or getting lost. In addition, every couple of floors, the museum has separate chambers where they have other special or permanent exhibitions, but the main spiral usually explores a retrospective of a specific artist or a specific theme or era throughout, which makes a cohesive experience.

Last march I visited their exhibition Gutai, devoted to the Japanese artist conglomerate that started in mid 20^th century in the western city of Ashiya. There is art in many different mediums which created a very interesting journey through the Gugghenheim. The artists explored new mediums and mixed media that were non-conventional with Japanese art customs. They lived and worked in Japan after the communist regime had just ended. A lot of their art is a political commentary in everything that happened and the results of that period. The color red can be seen through the exhibition and even some pieces are so easily related to suppression, like a giant red cube built in vinyl or plastic that the audience could come inside and feel complete segregated from the outside. Others are on-site projects that have been built at the museum, such as one igloo-like piece called “Bisexual Flower” which you enter and in the darkness stands a vinyl sculpture in neon lights and a psychedelic experience ensues.

From such major pieces, in scale, you can see how many of these pieces were meant to be shown outdoors. There were works in painting, sculpture, video, mixed media, photography of on-site projects in Japan. Quite an array belonging to close to 20 artists.

It was a really interesting, colorful, and still politically filled exhibition. These group of artists have had a large impact on western art as well as asian art, and were pioneers at breaking the geographical distance between art trends and art periods.

There are still a couple of weeks left to see this spring exhibit that is on show til May 8.  You can buy tickets online and plan your visit at http://www.museumtix.com/venueinfo/venueinfo.aspx?vid=873&tab=E&pvt=srgf

Welcome to Art Around Town 

I created this blog because I am having fun writing it and hope it will be helpful and useful for you too! New York City is a large city with plenty of stuff happening every day. Arts in the city are of utmost importance and there are art events, shows, exhibitions, and performances everyday in many places across the city. It became very easy for me to forget what shows to go to before they close and what gallery openings to go to, thus I hope to be informative and encouraging for you to go out and visit places and see the beautiful and dramatic happenings in our fun little city.

Thanks!