New Yorkers and New Jerseyans weigh in on their favorite 'unexpected art' around NYC
Nov. 4, 2023, 11:01 a.m.
Some of the best ways to encounter art are the unpredictable ones.
New York City has so many options for viewing art: world-class museums and performance spaces. Some of the most creative people alive live here.
And yet, some of the best ways to encounter art are the unpredictable ones, like the murals you'll see in the subway, or the surprising tangle of vegetation at LaGuardia Place and West Houston Street, in Greenwich Village, called “Time Landscape.”
You just have to keep your eyes open.
Eric Copage wrote a recent New York Times article titled, “Hidden Art: A Rhapsody for the Soul, in 10 City Corners.”
It's a list he curated, and he writes for Big Apple adventurers yearning for the unknown, the unnoticed, and the unexpected.
Copage spoke to WNYC’s Alison Stewart on a recent episode of “All of It” to discuss where to find unexpected art in the city, and WNYC listeners called in to share their suggestions.
Stewart: Eric, you have this beautiful line you start the article with: "When I emerge from an art gallery or a museum, the world around me looks different." How so? And why?
Copage: It amplifies it. It gives it more meaning. It gives it an extra depth, which is what I enjoy. Also, it just has me being more alert to what's going on around me.
For instance, I didn't mention it here, but there's a piece on Houston and Broadway. It's a big wall. It's called “The Wall,” as a matter of fact, by Forrest Myers. It's basically girders on a wall. The wall is painted blue and the girders are green.
I was in Lower Manhattan a couple weeks ago. There's a piece of the Berlin Wall in Lower Manhattan, which I never knew. That has stayed with me for a week. You do have those moments that you stumble upon art, and they can change your day. They can change your week.
Well, the way I discovered the first piece we talked about, “Masstransiscope,” I was on a date actually, and we were coming from Brooklyn and going into Manhattan.
Suddenly, there's this burst of color, and I'm thinking, "Did you just see what I saw?" The answer was no. Then it happened again, and it's like, "We coordinated and saw it." It's those situations that I really like.
I want to ask about that piece, "Masstransiscope." You can only view it from the train. How does one view this piece?
Well, the artist Bill Brand made this 20 or 30 years ago. I get all confused because it must be closer to like 40 years. It was around 1980. He was a filmmaker, and basically experimental films.
He thought to himself, "On a good night, I might get a hundred people showing up. What would happen if I had an infinite audience of innumerable people?"
He came up with this idea. We actually have a little video clip of it and also people's reactions to it. It tickles me to see that, because I talked seriously about being more alive and that kind of thing.
I didn't mention it in the piece, but there's an Alexander Calder sidewalk between 78th and 79th Street. I just like the idea of the recognition that people are walking over this piece that was composed by this first-class artist.
Let's take a call. Marissa is calling in from Greenwich Village.
Marissa: What I called about is that there is a mosaic. It's mostly in orange and blue to indicate the water. It was made sometime in the early '60s. My father worked on it. Anyway, on 42nd Street where the police station is. Every time I go to the Theater District, I make sure I get off there and look at it because it's still there. It just gives me joy.
Thank you, Marissa. Let's get to something else on your list, Eric. We're going to stick with the subway theme. An audio installation at Herald Square, “Reach New York: An Urban Musical Instrument.” This one is easy to overlook. Where should one look for it?
Copage: The yellow line, the Broadway line, the Q Line. I went back and forth with the MTA about how to describe it. Anyway, I think everyone knows what I'm talking about.
What tickles me about that is that sometimes what happens is that it's a 30-foot-long instrument that goes off when people go near it.
What I like about that is people don't always realize that that's what's going on. Some people are puzzled like, "Where's this sound coming from?" Some people are oblivious to the sound and some people have found out about it and greet it.
I talked to the artist, and one of the things he said that was important to him is you have this man-made artificial environment, the subway. He got the sounds, the bird sounds, the natural sounds from Cornell. They have an ornithology, a bank of them. He liked that contrast, that tension between these natural sounds and this confined man-made environment.
Steve from West Orange is going to shout out something that made your list, Eric. Hi, Steve.
Steve: This is a wonderful piece that was created around 1975 underneath Times Square in one of the subway vaults by the artist Max Neuhaus.
It was called "Times Square," and it was a low rolling, droning sound that you would hear as you passed right over the grate under which it was located over that vault.
You didn't hear it too far away because there's so much traffic noise. There was no label on it at all, but it was calculated, like so many other of Max Neuhaus' works, to make the listener stop and recognize something unusual and listen to it. I don't know, I guess the transit authority turned it off.
Copage: Oh yes, it's back on. It was dormant for 10 years because he was in Europe, but he came back and got funding, and it's there right now. I was there before the piece came out. I visited all these places beforehand.
What do you think it is about the subway that makes a great gallery space?
Copage: Well, it's a confined space, that's one thing. I didn't use as many subway pieces as there are to use because they have a tremendous art program down there, but I wanted to get pieces that you didn't know necessarily, like when you see the Faith Ringgold, you know what it is. When you see the Eric Fischl, you know. When you see the Roy Lichtenstein, you know that it's art.
What I was trying to go for were things that you either ignore or that may or may not be art, however, you want to define art.
There's a piece that you were very excited to talk about, Eric.
Copage: Right. It's a piece by Martin and Muñoz. They're a husband-and-wife team, and that's the name they go by.
It's on 49th Street between Second and Third Avenue, and it's at Amster Yard. Basically, what it is is you have these trees, and there are five different trees among maybe 20 trees. When you look among them, you'll see there's an eye looking at you.
I've been there five or six times. I still have a hard time finding those eyes, which is what I appreciate about it. The other thing that doesn't quite come off in the photograph, and the photographs were done by a great photographer, by the way, I have nothing but praise for him. The eyes are just the size of a human eye.
When you see this big trunk, it's hard to find, and then when you do find it, it looks really creepy, but creepy in the best sense, like "The Wizard of Oz," where the trees come alive, it's like that. Expect these things, first they're looking at you like a scans and then you expect them to start saying something rude. I love it.
Those eyes are wild. Tell us a little bit about this piece in the Staten Island Ferry terminal in Manhattan by Ming Fay?
Copage: The thing about that piece for me is how I was introduced to it. I was soliciting various people to tell me some hidden art they have. Off hand, I was like, "I want to check this out." Very low expectations. When I walked in and saw it, I was floored.
First of all, it's made out of this heavy granite, but it's very live. It looks like a serpent. It's over this floor, which has a marine-like take to it.
I just really like that because I like the contrast of the heaviness, and I like that it's utilitarian and beautiful, and that it looks like it shouldn't be there, in a good way. How can't it? It looks like it shouldn't be able to be there. That's what I want to say. It's beautiful. It really is beautiful.
Let's talk to Matt from Brooklyn. Hi, Matt.
Matt: Thanks for having me on. I work as a charter boat captain in the harbor, and I get to see things on the shoreline. I think the coast of the harbor's got great opportunities for sculptures and installations.
There's one on Governors Island by Charles Gaines called “Moving Chains.” It's more of an installation than a sculpture, but seeing it from the water is special. I always get questions about it. You can, of course, see it from Governors Island itself, but seeing it from the water is neat.
There's one at the end of the pier in Jersey City, it's called "Water's Soul," and I'm not going to pronounce his name well, but Jaume Plensa. It's a big, white sculpture, kind of shushing Manhattan from across the river. It's neat.
One that very few people know about is a sculpture in New Jersey, at the end of an industrial pier, called “Tear Drop.” It's a memorial to 9/11 given to us by Russia.
The story is that Mayor Bloomberg didn't like the sculpture, and he didn't like Putin, who gave it to us, so he shoved it over to the end of this pier in New Jersey. I'm not particularly fond of it, but I find it to be a pretty intriguing story.
Matt. I see a whole other side hustle for you, doing art tours from your boat. I just feel like that would just be a wonderful thing. If you ever do it, let us know. Okay?
Matt: Sure thing. Will do.
Some of the art can be hard to find. Eric, you've mentioned this briefly, but I wanted to circle back to it. "Dwellings," which is in the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue, is housed in one of the stairwell landings. Every time I see this, I'm like, "What is that?" It's just this little tiny thing in the corner that if you're going down the stairs, you'll see. What is that?
Copage: It's part of a series of pieces that have been done since the '70s by an artist named Charles Simonds. That was done I think it was in 1980, '81. Basically, I was introduced to it in the late '80s, and it looked neglected.
When someone told me about that, it was like exchanging a secret handshake. When you look at it, you can look over at the Apple Store on the second floor is part two, and then on the roof of the same building, is the third part of it.
I didn't know it was part of a tryptic.
Copage: That's the fun part. It's layers and layers and layers.
There's so many good calls. Let's talk to Richard from the Upper East Side.
Richard: I have to go to Brooklyn quite often for work. When I get off the FDR to get on the Williamsburg Bridge, I take Clinton Street, and from there, you can see a humongous statue of Lenin on one of the walk-up buildings.
Actually, I read about it. The owner of the building went to the Soviet Union, I forget, either before they collapsed or right after they collapsed, and he bought it for dirt cheap from a scrappy yard and shipped it via boat. This thing is huge [18-feet tall], and it's on the roof of the building.
I come from the former Soviet bloc, and when I saw it for the very first time, I was floored.
Wow, that is so interesting. It gets to the point, Eric, that you never know who's going to come upon what.
Copage: That's exactly it.
That has an entirely different meaning for Richard than someone else. Before we wrap, I want to get to one more piece from Harriet Feigenbaum. She created “The Holocaust Memorial,” which is a marble carving on Madison at 26th Street. You had a chance to speak with her?
Copage: I did. Basically, what attracted me to the piece was that someone told me about it, and then I looked at it and I saw it. I hang out in that area. I like that area where the dog run. What I like about her is her passion in it.
The whole idea is that this Holocaust happened, and we don't want it to happen again for anybody. She was very passionate about that, and I really appreciated that.
It's basically an aerial view of a concentration camp of Auschwitz, as a matter of fact. The whole idea is that different parts are labeled, including where the officers sleep and also the crematorium. I just found that that was just touching.