Chelsea, the Highline and Broadway

Big day!

I was up early; I don't like spending the morning in bed when I'm in a new city with things to explore. With a visit to the Highline on the cards, I headed down to Chelsea with a few others from the group.

The Sheep Station in Chelsea

Street art in Chelsea

While we may wake early, the city that doesn't sleep sure loves to sleep in, so no galleries were open. Never mind. We stumbled into a parkland by the river. Beautiful. After all the high rises and concrete, it was great to have some open space with few people around, and what felt like grass as far as the eye could see. An oasis.

Back into the streets, as 10am approached we hunted galleries, but we found you didn't need to go inside to see the art. It was on the walls, on the pavement, and even on the pedestrian crossings. Every door you go past seems to be an art gallery, and new, fancy buildings are rising all around. I thought the gentrification was incredibly obvious here. These mostly look like warehouses, you go inside and it's still a concrete floored warehouse, but someone has put up some white walls to hang art on, and on one street, a worn, dirty, old building facade facing a beautiful, expensive looking wall and entry way. The old and new, happily facing off on the streets of Chelsea.

The Highline was interesting. Beyond the urban renewal, it's been embraced by New Yorkers. It was crowded with families out for a walk where the city has made a scratch in the concrete to let nature peek through. But that's not enough for New York. It has to have art. It's in sculptures in the gardens, billboards you walk by, painted on the buildings and roofs, artworks you'll never see from street level. But it has to be there. This is part of New York.

While the rest of the group made their way to PS1, I hopped on the Subway and took off to Broadway.

The Book of Mormon was calling.

I picked up my tickets and joined the queue eager to get inside the warmth. A hawker was selling programs, and I have no doubt that he wants to be treading the boards one day himself, not just standing outside entertaining the crowd and selling overpriced merchandise.

The theatre is different to where I've been before. No real foyer. You go straight into the seating area. No cloak room, and the bars appear to be afterthoughts. I squeezed into my seat in the front row and the friendly ladies next to me in their furs and pearls made conversation. Like most Americans I've met, very friendly people. I was a little concerned when the show started. I knew there'd be some blue language, but this was far more than expected. I peered over at the ladies wondering if they would be offended, but no, they were loving it. Not so prim and proper after all!

I browsed the playbill, and the number of shows on and off Broadway being shown is astounding. I remember playbills back in Australia, they generally only mentioned the show being seen because it WAS the only show in town.

This must be the place to be to get on stage, but then with everyone else coming, it's got to be incredibly hard to break through.

Japan Society - Mariko Mori

The Japan Society is a beautiful little building, and it was hosting an exhibition from Mariko Mori's latest work.

I'll admit it. A little part of me wishes Wave UFO was there. I'd love to climb inside and see what I can see. Much of the work was a little reminiscent of it, but that's just due to her use of lucite. Rebirth was somewhat how I imagined Wave UFO to be, sort of a dodgy rip off of it maybe.

It was hard to get much out of this visit. The Japan Society is about deepening the understanding between Japan and the USA, so it's fitting a Japanese artist living in New York is shown.

I admired the aesthetics of the exhibition, but for me I found little deeper meaning. Either Mori put everything on show in a simple way, or perhaps, she's gone far deeper than I can follow. One of the interesting things I have found over recent visits is the fashion major girls are quickly picking up the ability to analyse art. They had some great insights in the Christopher Wool exhibition, and I believe one of them hit the nail on the head in the Mori exhibition. It's a spiritual thing, she's off on her journey and these works are more a personal thing rather than something made for the public. We'd need to be along on her ride to really understand.

MoMA and Cinereach

And so it begins. All together in the SoHo room at the hostel; possibly the first time I've seen the entire group. Discussions about what we've done and observed, what we want to do. The experience goes beyond art. It's eating the food, riding the subway, going to an NFL game. Art isn't something separate. It's tangled up in all aspects of the city and culture.

First on the agenda is a visit to MoMA, but a quick check of the map shows 30 Rockerfeller right near MoMA, so we hop on the subway and head down. It's more than sightseeing. It shows you just how big the city is. But our time is up all too soon and we're off to MoMA.

I get caught in a long queue at the cloak room, but then head upstairs to the Magritte exhibition. Spending time in the Magritte exhibition gave a much better sense of what he was about than looking at a few images in a lecture, or even researching him. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering the galleries,  wowing at much of the artwork. All day was needed, and I know I'm not the only one who intends to go back. The gallery is full of artworks we've studied in class, and seeing them in person is amazing. You take in so much more from seeing them in person than you can through an image. The scale, the textures, so many details you just can't see without being in the same room. 

MoMA was followed by a vist to Cinereach, with Elliott Whitton. Seeing inside a working space was great, but it was more interesting to hear where Elliott came to New York. Sure, he loved the city on his own study tour, but this is where things are happening. It's almost like if you're not here, you're nowhere.

NYC is a magnet. You come to experience the art and culture,  but so do many other people, and it's here you meet other creatives, where you can meet like minded people, and given the right luck, begin working with them.

First Impressions and Road Trips

After something like 2 days with no sleep, I arrived in New York. Security was nowhere near as harsh as I expected, so that was nice. I came across the odd gruff American, but they were mostly polite and friendly.

I arrived earlier than the group and had booked a hotel for the night, so I made my way outside to find dinner. What luck! A bona fide American diner! The staff were super helpful and friendly, being patient with the bumbling, jetlagged aussie.

True to the stereotype, the meal was HUGE. My first tipping experience was helped by the waiter adding it to the bill.

The next morning I returned to the diner for breakfast came back to my room to find a complimentary New York Times. Browsing through I found a dedicated arts section. My first sign of New York as a creative city. It was quite comprehensive, indicating the seriousness art is taken in the city. Not just one or two pages, but a full section on par with every other part of the newspaper. I believe in Brisbane we have an arts section in the Sunday paper, but nothing like this. 

On our first day with most of the group together we visited the National Museum of Natural History. Still being jetlagged, a group of us ended up in the cafe talking art. Was it a natural occurrence for some graduating art students? Or something to do with the city's environment? There may have been the sampling of some New York street vendor hot dogs too.

While I had never particularly wanted to visit the USA, one of my favourite movies of all time is the Blues Brothers.  

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. 

Where would the American film industry be without road trips? Well, I couldn't get an old police car and drive to Chicago, but I could hire a car, book a room, and drive to Washington DC. What I thought would be a 3 hour drive became a good 5 hours, but was well worth it.

DC has a completely different feel and vibe to New York. Slower, cleaner, friendlier, with beautiful old buildings and tree lined streets.

Art and culture is an important part of DC too, with the Smithsonian precinct incredibly huge. My visit to the Hirshhorn was great. Seeing so many artworks from people we had discussed in class; seeing them in person has much more of an impact than on a PowerPoint presentation.

Perhaps the concentration of cultural institutions increases the creativity of a city?

New York: A Creative City?

New York.

It's not somewhere I've ever wanted to go. I'm just not a fan of big cities, I'd rather go see nature than sky scrapers. But then the study tour came up, an excuse to finally get myself overseas, and a great way to cap my degree. Let's do this.

So what IS a creative city?

To me it's a city that inspires and breeds creativity. Surely there can be no denying it; if any city is a creative city, it's New York.

Billy Joel was in a New York state of mind. If Frank Sinatra could make it there, he could make it anywhere. Adam Duritz was hanging out in a bar with Mr Jones in New York when they met a black haired flamenco dancer. The lads from Rancid were hanging on the corner of 52nd and Broadway. A quick search on Wikipedia reveals hundreds, possibly thousands of songs about New York.

There are countless galleries and museums, Broadway shows, off Broadway shows. People come from all over the world so they too can 'make it' in New York.

The trip is a week away now, and I'm getting excited, plotting out the itinerary into my calendar. MoMA, Guggenheim, P21, Metropolitan Museum, all places I'm keen to see. Actually seeing a lot of the art work i've read about will be great. I'm going to have to add in a visit to the Museum of Natural History, and definitely catching a Broadway show. Book of Mormon here i come!

I definitely want to get along and find the places mentioned in songs I like. 52nd and Broadway, Washington Square, New Amsterdam, and heck, just about every place mentioned in a Billy Joel song. There may be touristy selfies.

Greek food. I'm told you pretty much can't get bad food in New York, because they'll go out of business too quick, so i'm keen to try some great food, but Greek is my favourite and I want to see what they've got.

In the spare time I have there, I have no idea what I want to do! Possibly take a trip outside of the city, maybe hire a car. I'm hoping to figure that out before I go, but I think it will be good to explore and just find things i'm interested in. I don't want to follow the guide book everyone else follows. I need to discover New York for myself.