Tag Archives: NYC

NYC Before Yesterday We Could Fly

Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room is a multi-artist exhibition whose narrative is generated by the real, lived history of Seneca Village, a vibrant community founded predominantly by free Black tenants and landowners that flourished from the 1820s to the 1850s near The Met’s current site.

NYC Temple of Dendur

The Temple of Dendur is an Egyptian religious temple that was rescued from the floodwaters during the construction of the Aswan Dam and reservoir. It was donated by the Egyptian government and has been on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1978.

The museum built an extension to its north wing to house the temple. It connects the Egyptian art wing to the American wing of the Met. It is one of the most striking and visited installations at the museum. It was featured in several films, including When Harry Met Sally. A recent addition to the exhibit is a projection depicting the original white surface and brightly colored decorations that would have adorned the temple.

NYC Deserted Fulton Street Station

Due to crime and mismanagement by the MTA, the multi-million dollar renovation of the Fulton Street Station and shopping center lies mostly empty and deserted of commerce. Only stores that remain open are a donut shop and a newspaper stand. The situation is a sad indictment of the DeBlasio and Adams administrations at NY City Hall and the Cuomo administration in Albany.

#nyc #subway #crimenews https://youtu.be/o03PTZeRg7Q

Superfine at the MET

https://youtu.be/XXVo7XUNR1s

Superfine: Tailoring Black Style is a special exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is put on by the Met’s Costume Institute and brings together examples of Black fashion over 300 years. It ties it to celebrities of different centuries and eras and how the past influences the present.

Seeing the Met’s custom collection is always exciting. New York is the center of America’s fashion industry after all. Over the last 20 years, fashion and cloting as art have made a larger presence at the Met. This exhibit connects high fashion to and the influence of Black pop-culture.

Read more about this exhibit on the Met’s website.

Sargent in Paris at the Met

“Sargent in Paris” is a new retrospective at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) showcasing the early career of American painter John Singer Sargent. John Singer Sargent is one of my favorite painters and was a rare American artist who created some of Europe’s most iconic portrait paintings during the late 19th Century’s “Gilded Age.”

Sargent grew up traveling throughout Europe with his parents. He studied art and painting in Paris under famed portrait artist Carolus-Duran. Paris in the 19th Century was the center of the art world. It was also a time when tastes and style were being transformed by Impressionism and the Industrial Revolution.

This retrospective includes works Sargent created while a student and during his travels around Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. It explores contemporaries and influences, and friends like Claude Monet and Rodin, and includes pieces by Renior, Manet, and Sargent’s mentor Carolus-Duran.

The exhibit culminates with the portrait of “Madam X”, a painting that would make Sargent famous, because of the mini-scandal it created in Parisian high society. The painting was presented at the 1884 Paris Salon exhibition and created a stir among the public and Art Critics due to the hanging dress strap as worn by Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. She was the Kim Kardashian/Paris Hilton of her day.

Learn more on the Met’s website.

NYC Washington Crossing the Delaware

Washington Crossing the Delaware is a life-sized oil-on-canvas painting by Emanuel Leutze depicting General George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War. This large-format painting hangs in the Gallery of American Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. This painting is 1-of-2 existing versions; the other hangs in the Metropolitan Marine Museum.

This painting is famously used in many American History textbooks. What was surprising to me was the size of the painting, at 12ft x 22ft. The figures are life-sized.

NYC Fifth Avenue Apple Store

The Fifth Avenue Apple Store is Apple’s flagship store in Manhattan. Opened in 2006 and with its iconic glass cube installed in 2011, this store was built on the site of the General Motors Gardens. It still contains potted trees which are carefully illuminated by sunlight and artificial lighting.

The store was originally designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Its renovation in 2011, which included the construction of its iconic glass cube entrance, was by Foster + Partners and Apple’s chief design officer Jony Ive. It visually harkens to I.M. Pei’s Louver pyramid. The Apple Store sits at the corner of Fifth Avenue opposite Grand Army Plaza at the corner of Central Park.

NYC The Oculus

The Oculus is the architecturally stunning transit hub next to the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan in New York City. It houses the NJ PATH station with connections to 12 NYC subway lines. It also houses dining and stores managed by Westfield. It connects to the NYC Fulton Street subway station, One World Trade Center Tower and Observatory, Brookfield Place, and the Ferry Terminal in Battery Park City.

Designed by famed Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. In utility, function, and aesthetics, it is one of the finest transportation structures in the world and certainly the best transit building built in the United States this century.