NYC: Art Is Back!
New York is coming back, baby! Back with new restaurants, back with rooftop bars, back with dance parties, and back with…ART!
What is New York without art? Honestly, it lost some of its je nais se quoi during the pandemic without Broadway, galleries, big art openings, and the general art “scene.” But now it’s coming back with a vengeance. In the past month, I’ve gone to three big art shows: Alice Neel: People Come First, Social! The Socially Distant Dance Club, and Kusama: Cosmic Nature.
The Armory show (Social!) has official closed (but will be taken on the road this summer), while the Kusama exhibit was just extended through October, and the Neel show is still up.
The Alice Neel show was spectacular. Mostly because it was the first time I’d been in a museum since the pandemic, but also because she’s a fantastic painter, who I first learned about in my freshman year illustration elective. Her work is confrontational, expressive, and socially relevant over 50 years later. We met up with my friend Anabelle on the steps of The Met and took the day to explore and get inspired.
If you’re not familiar with The Park Avenue Armory in NYC, you should be. It hosts a wide range of experimental shows like Tom Sach’s space show where he built a life-sized Landing Exploration Module for you to get into, or the art-meets-technology Ai Weiwei surveillance exhibit where your CCTV images were projected to make wild shapes on the ground. This time, David Byrne hosted an hour-long dance party where each person stood in their own spotlight 12 feet away from another human. There was a DJ in the center of it all, dancing, spinning tracks, and encouraging new and fun dance moves.
Photos were forbidden in the main space, but here’s the promo video for the show that accurately depicts the show:
Before entering the space, each person got rapid tested for COVID. After being tested and waiting for 30 minutes for the results to come back (while waiting in a room filled with music and videos of people dancing throughout the world), we were ushered into the great hall where we boogied down. I’ve never felt so confused leaving an art show before. It was 12 p.m. on a Sunday and I felt like I’d just been out dancing for an entire night (in the best way possible). Following our dance party, we headed to Central Park for a picnic!
Finally, last week, I went to the Bronx Botanical Gardens to see the incomparable Kusama. If you don’t know her name, you surely know her work — the infinity rooms. Her work was placed throughout the gardens, the conservatory, and the gallery spaces in a way that worked seamlessly with the surroundings. Note: if you want to see the entire exhibit and have access to the conservatory and trams, you have to buy the gallery pass, not just the garden pass.
I’m so excited, and more importantly, inspired, now that New York City is coming back to life. I can’t wait to see more art this summer!
-Jen
P.S. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Huh, they’re still wearing masks in all of these pictures,” that’s because NYC knows what’s up. This virus is far from gone, regardless of the percentage of people vaccinated (hopefully including you). If you come to New York, be prepared to mask up. It is still required in a lot of spaces.
