[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, actor Daniel Dae Kim and playwright David Henry Hwang will be here to talk about their play Yellowface, now on Broadway. Charles Bock joins us to talk about going from reluctant dad to devoted single father, a journey he writes about in his new memoir, I Will Do Better, and we'll kick off a week of conversations with artists featured in the Montclair Art Museum's New Jersey Arts Annual first-up painter Maria Mijares. That is the plan. Let's get this started with some of the best art in New York.

[MUSIC- Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

Alison Stewart: We are celebrating WNYC's 100th birthday, and this summer we've had concerts, audio flashbacks. This Wednesday, Barchives NYC will host a WNYC for an event at the Hi-Note bar in East Village. We, here on All Of It, are celebrating the series with art, a hundred pieces of art to be exact. We've been asking experts in the field for recommendations for pieces of art that they could make time to see right here in New York City. We've talked to Art News editor Sarah Douglas, New York Times art critic Will Heinrich, New York Magazine senior art critic Jerry Saltz, and today, we are speaking with the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic Hrag Vartanian. Hrag, welcome.

Hrag Vartanian: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, what piece of art moves you in New York City? Call us 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, or you can call in and join us on air, or you can text that to that number as well, 212-433-9692 or reach out via social media @AllOfItWNYC.So when you were thinking about this list, this idea of 10 pieces of art you should see in New York City, what do you use as your criteria?

Hrag Vartanian: Well, I love a good story. A lot of these just have really good stories, but also something you can't stop thinking about, and sometimes you're conflicted about and you have to go back and see it. I think that's really important. All the ones I've picked all have interesting stories and have that complexity I look for it.

Alison Stewart: You like a lot of public art in your piece.

Hrag Vartanian: I do.

Alison Stewart: What do you like about public art?

Hrag Vartanian: Well, I like the fact that you can visit it at different times of day under different weather conditions. They really seem to have a relationship with the public. For me, that's one of the most interesting things about art.

Alison Stewart: You want to talk about the revs. Hidden diaries in the subways of the tunnels of New York City. Tell us about these.

Hrag Vartanian: This is one of those pieces that when you tell New Yorkers, a lot of them don't even know it exists. I love hidden artworks. Hidden artworks are the best. Back in the nineties, this artist who's mysterious and has never sold a work of art in his life, he started writing his hidden diaries in the tunnels of New York City. The goal was to have one between every two stations, and I think he got up to about 200 or so. Most of them have been erased, but you can still get glimpses of them on the L train and a couple of others. So if your train has stopped somewhere in the tunnel, look for writing on the wall and you might get a glimpse of his diary.

Alison Stewart: What is he writing about his life?

Hrag Vartanian: Yes, exactly. Like, just observations. Some of them are very flow of consciousness, like the streaming of different ideas. They're just words. Because you don't really get to see the whole piece unless you were standing in the tunnel. It's kind of this little phrase that pops through, and I love that.

Alison Stewart: All right, let's talk about the Toynbee tiles. Where exactly are these tiles? Where do I find them?

Hrag Vartanian: They're all over the city. I'll give you a little bit of a tip because two of them are pretty well known. They're on Broadway. One is right by the strand, and there is actually a tile of The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's famous book.

Alison Stewart: Oh, really?

Hrag Vartanian: Yes. Toynbee tiles are sort of a term we use for all of these kinds of pavement works. They started in the eighties. A mysterious story around the origin of it, and we don't actually know the real person behind it, but since then, people have taken it up. The ones you see in New York tend to be by someone called House of Hades, and that's one of them. Then there's another one on Broadway and East 10th, and that's a more abstract one, which you often see, but there are dozens of them in the city,

Alison Stewart: They're all over?

Hrag Vartanian: All over, and they're mysterious. People use them like Easter eggs, and they just sort of go looking for them. You come across them and you'd be surprised there might be one outside of the street.

Alison Stewart: Now I have to go look. Let's take a call. Damani is calling from Brooklyn. Hi, Damani. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Damani: Hi. Long-time listener, long-time caller. There's this one place in Brooklyn that I really love because it's called the Underhill Walls, and it's in Underhill. It's near the Brooklyn Museum. What happens is this guy, Jeff Beller, he curates all these new artists that come and they do these paintings for free. They really beautify this one area where there's nothing else happening. Every so often you go by and it's like a different set of paintings. It's not like one person doing one piece. It's like a series from four or five artists.

I just love the fact that every time I go over there, I expect to see a new piece, you know? It's just a real delight that they take this opportunity and really give love to this one place and really beautify it with all the art that they do. It's also an Easter egg, but it changes. It's the same location, but it changes. If you ever are around there, definitely check it out. It's called the Underhill Walls. I think they have an Instagram.

Alison Stewart: Yes, they do. In fact, they do. Thanks a lot, Damani. Let's talk to Julia from Glendale. Hi, Julia. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Julia: Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call, Alison, long-time listener. Hi, Hrag. I have a public sculpture commission for the New York City Parks Department that's still on view at the Queens Flushing Meadows Corona Park near the Queen's Museum. It's called Light Portal, and it is up through the end of November. It's inspired by the Tent of Tomorrow, which is a world sphere relic there at the site, but it has some new additions.

Alison Stewart: That's your own piece of work. Yes?

Julia: Yes, it is. I'm so proud to contribute something to the landscape of my city in a prominent location. I did one piece for NYC parks in Brower Park, Brooklyn in 2017, but this is a more centralized location for New Yorkers, so I'm so happy for that.

Alison Stewart: Love it. Julia, what's your last name?

Julia: Sinelnikova. Julia Sinelnikova. The piece is at Ederle Terrace if you want to use Google Maps.

Alison Stewart: All right, Julia, thank you for calling in. Listeners, what's your favorite piece of art in New York City that moves you? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call in, or you can text us at that number. Our guest is Hrag Vartanian. He's editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic. All right, we're going to talk about your second piece on your list. It's a bronze, life-size statue of the Danish sculptor. I'm going to ask you to say his name.

Hrag Vartanian: Thorvaldsen.

Alison Stewart: Thank you. Tell us about the sculpture.

Hrag Vartanian: Sure. Well, this sculpture is really kind of unique. It's the only sculpture of an artist in New York City Parks, and you can enter on 96th and 5th Avenue. It's sort of interesting in the way that Columbus statues were all over the United States. Danish Americans took on Thorvaldsen in many ways and created these statues in different parts of the city. Part of the reason that that happened was because Thorvaldsen supposedly descended from the first European ever born in America, believe it or not. It's this kind of interesting story of this neoclassical sculptor who was, after Antonio Canova, the great sculptor of the 19th century passed away, he became the one people look to, this Danish sculptor.

He has this beautiful sculpture in that period. At the same time, he also created Temperance Fountain down in Tompkins Square Park. Alison, can I share that story? Because that story of how that fountain--

Alison Stewart: Yes, please do.

Hrag Vartanian: It's so good. That was created in 19th century as part of the temperance movement, and a gentleman named Henry Cogswell, who was a millionaire who created these fountains throughout the city because he wanted to give people an alternative to alcoholic beverages, believe it or not. Around there was, of course, a very German neighborhood with a lot of bars. He created this sculpture so people can have a drink of water. Isn't that crazy?

Alison Stewart: Just to have a drink of water to be temperate, I guess.

[laughter]

Hrag Vartanian: Exactly. Which is kind of wonderful. He's actually had these significant artworks throughout the city. I think a lot of people don't know who he is, and they should.

Alison Stewart: Let's go out to Flushing Meadows Corona Park. It's the Column of Jerash. Am I saying it correctly?

Hrag Vartanian: That's right. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Also known as the Whispering Column of Jerash. It's a monument in Flushing Meadows. First of all, can you describe it for us?

Hrag Vartanian: Yes, absolutely. It is a solitary sculpture with a Corinthian top, and it's sort of an attic base or ionic. It's just a single sculpture that was donated by the government of Jordan to the city of New York during the World's Fair in 1965. While you're going to go see Julia's sculpture, who called in, and I know Julia, so, hi, Julia, you can go and wander around and find the sculpture. Periodically, unfortunately, parts of it are under renovation because it is a 2000-year-old work.

Alison Stewart: Yes. How do they keep it preserved?

Hrag Vartanian: They glue it so the water doesn't seep in. It's the second oldest sculpture in New York City, the first being Cleopatra's Needle, but this one is people don't know about. It's this amazing thing, so if you're going to the Queens Museum or to see other public art, this is a really beautiful thing to see. It's been renovated through the years and periodically the cities had to preserve parts of it. Right now, I think the Capitol is being preserved, but you can go and still see it in the middle of the park and have a little piece of the ancient world right in front of you.

Alison Stewart: We've got a tech central park fully created, decidedly audience-focused and good for the world. Probably has consumed more CO2 than all other New York City art. That's Graham from Inwood. Let's talk to James from West Harlem. Hi, James. Thanks for calling All Of It.

James: Yes, of course. I wanted to talk about the West Harlem Arts Alliance. It's a great nonprofit based in West Harlem. They do public art exhibitions in vacant commercial buildings. Currently, one of my favorites is right off of the 137th Street City College stop. They took an old building that had been boarded up. They did a call for artists, and they did a great exhibition in two parts in the storefront of this vacant building. At night, it lights up and everyone off the subway can see what otherwise would have been a vacant building with all these really cool local artists and their works there.

Alison Stewart: James, thanks so much for calling in. Let's talk to Eileen from Maplewood, New Jersey. Hi, Eileen.

Eileen: Hi. I'm so excited to talk to you. Long-time listener of NYC. I'm delighted about this program. One of my favorite things in New York that I show to people when I go, and I don't even know if it's still up there because I don't commute there anymore, is a phenomenal piece on, I think it's the R track platform around 31st maybe, and an R train. It's an interactive that has sound triggering. There's two big green metal bars on either side of the platform, and if you wave your umbrella or a newspaper and you cross the beam of light that senses it, birdsong explodes, like birdsong and forest sounds.

I've seen people play with it, and that's another form of noise in the background, but I've seen people play with it across the platform. Since the subway can be so oppressive and so depressing and so harsh, it's just delightful to see people interact with this. Most of the time, people don't even know it's there. It's above head height, so you have to wave around. You have to make an effort.

Alison Stewart: Eileen, thanks so much. Do you know what she's talking about?

Hrag Vartanian: I do know that work. Yes. I love that people discover it because you don't expect something like that, I think.

Alison Stewart: All right. Also on Hrag Vartanian's list, Hrag, by the way, is the co-founder of Hyperallergic, editor-in-chief, is the Assyrian art at the Brooklyn Museum.

Hrag Vartanian: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Tell us what we'll experience.

Hrag Vartanian: There you're walking into a room right near the Egyptian collections where you have twelve reliefs, and there are these beautiful, large sculptures, these sort of like these figures and these genies and sacred trees and all these other forms from the 9th century BCE. We're talking pretty, pretty old. They were from the royal palace of the Neo-Assyrian period. These are really grand, beautiful works.

What you can see there is, you see the glory of this empire in front of you, and they're really, really amazing. They were excavated in the 19th century, and only 200 of the 600 are still in Iraq, and then the rest are at museums all around the world. They arrived in the Brooklyn Museum in the 1950s, and you have this amazing opportunity to see these incredible, monumental pieces that are part of art history.

Alison Stewart: Here's a text. I am always moved by the zodiac ceiling in Grand Central. No matter how many times I walk through the main concourse, it stuns me with its vast beauty. That's Christina texting in from Westchester. The next said, "The Great Elephant Migration. The Meatpacking district. That's pretty fun."

Hrag Vartanian: Yes, it is.

Alison Stewart: That's pretty fun.

Hrag Vartanian: Yes, that's a good one.

Alison Stewart: All right. You've been talking about inside exhibition and art. Let's talk about outside. Elizabeth Catlett's Ralph Ellison Memorial at 150th and Riverside. In fact, the Brooklyn Museum is putting on the Elizabeth Catlett show. You can listen to it. We talked to the curators. Why did you decide to highlight the Ralph Ellison Memorial?

Hrag Vartanian: Well, I think that's sort of beautiful, not just about literature. It's also about the way artists see the city. I think Ralph Ellison was really, his book also talks about New York, an artistic experience of the city. Elizabeth Catlett really transforms it to give us a frame to consider. I love that when you go on one side, you're seeing the river and the trees, and then you turn around and you're looking down a city street. It reminds you about how cities form us both inside and out. I think that's really important, and definitely go see the Retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum.

Alison Stewart: So beautiful.

Hrag Vartanian: It is stunning. Absolutely stunning. Everyone needs to know her. She's one of those artists, and she sort of talks about politics and talks about life, and she's able to transform things, but also in a language that everyone can understand. I think that's one thing, it was really true to her. You could tell that because you are going to feel something when you see the Invisible Man memorial, you know, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. That, to me, is really what public art especially is all about.

Alison Stewart: I have one, I have an Elizabeth Catlett in my house.

Hrag Vartanian: No, you don't.

Alison Stewart: I do.

Hrag Vartanian: And what do you think?

Alison Stewart: Every day I look at it. Every day.

Hrag Vartanian: And it must transform you, right?

Alison Stewart: It's unbelievable. It's right above my piano. It's just like it brings out something in me when I play.

Hrag Vartanian: It changes with your moods, too, and as time goes by, probably you have a different idea of it, too, right?

Alison Stewart: Well, it's got its own wall, its own special place in my house. The first thing you see when you walk in my house.

Hrag Vartanian: See? And then when you have a work like that, if you live nearby, you probably have the same thing. You go for a walk and you're sad one day and you look at that and you have a different reaction, and on days that it might be raining or sunny, you develop this relationship just like a person.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Semma from Peter Cooper Village. Hi, Seema. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Semma: Hi, it's Semma, actually.

Alison Stewart: I'm sorry, Semma.

Semma: Hi, Alison. I love your program. I wanted to just make a voice for the Elizabeth Street Garden, which is going to be torn down, sadly. It's one of the most natural forms of art made by the neighborhood residents. It's full of wonderful greenery and these neo-Romanesque lions and sculptures. I think the last two weeks are the last two weeks of this garden before a high rise goes up. The neighborhood fought very, very heavily to keep it. They have actors, Bob de Niro who voiced concern about it, but unfortunately, the developers seem to have one. It's a garden really worth seeing before it's torn down. A natural work of art in the city.

Alison Stewart: It is a really beautiful park and it's kind of a senior living is going to go. It's a hard situation, but thank you so much for bringing that up. We're going to have more with Hrag Vartanian and 100 pieces of art in New York City to see. All you have to do is look. Stay with us. You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Hrag Vartanian. He's the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic. He's joining us for our WNYC Centennial series, 100 pieces of art that you should see in New York City. It's our monthly take on great art in New York City. Hrag is giving us his top ten. All right. We're talking about Keith Haring murals at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. Tell us the stories behind these drawings.

Hrag Vartanian: The Crack is Wack mural and then maybe the mural at the gay center in the village are probably better known, but at Woodhull Hospital in Bed–Stuy, there's this amazing, in the entryway, there's this like freeze of drawings that are like people dancing, typical Keith Haring. It's sort of moving. It's colorful. Figures are stretched in crazy, unusual ways and there's a lot of movement. You get a sense of people dancing, which is kind of nice in a hospital, right?

My first experience was actually having gone to the hospital, believe it or not, and coming out and seeing these murals going, what are these? Then there's actually another hidden mural in the maternity ward of little babies and other kinds of little animals.

Alison Stewart: Little radiant babies.

Hrag Vartanian: Yes, like radiant babies, but it's also animals wearing high-heeled shoes, and things that kids do. It's this black and white mural hidden and they won't let you see it nowadays unless you're having a baby, I guess. You can walk into the entrance of Woodhull, which is right on Broadway and Flushing, and you can just walk in and you see this work of art that, frankly, is just as good as any Keith Haring you'd see in a museum. It's in this beautiful hospital that serves the community.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Davidson, who is calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Davidson. Thank you so much for calling All Of It.

Davidson: Good afternoon. I'm enjoying your program very, very much. I wanted to tell you, one of my favorite art pieces in New York is on the Miller building at 1552 Broadway. On the facade of the building in little alcoves, you have statues of leading ladies, Ethel Barrymore, Marilyn Miller, Mary Pickford, and the great operatic soprano Rosa Ponselle as Norma. I particularly love opera, so I look at Rosa Ponselle all the time when I'm passing that statue. She put Norma on the map 20 years before Maria Callas became very famous for doing it. It's just such theatrical history in New York right in Times Square.

Alison Stewart: You just taught me something that I did not know, Davidson. Thank you so much for calling in. Let's talk to Robin, who's calling from Westwood, New Jersey. Hi, Robin. Thanks so much for calling.

Robin: Hi, Alison, and thanks for having me on. Right around the corner from WNYC Studios in SoHo, there's a building on Watts street. Embedded into the side of the building are some modern-day gargoyles, but they're not sculptures in the fact that they are bas-reliefs of different scenes of industrialism that depict different people doing different jobs in the industry. It's a wonderful testament to what SoHo used to be as an industry center. The irony is that it's right there on Sixth Avenue at the entrance to the Holland tunnel. It's typically just packed with cars that never get a chance to look up at it.

Alison Stewart: Now we have something to look up at. Thank you so much for calling in. Let's get back to your list. Arshile Gorky. We interviewed his granddaughters on this show for this exhibit at Hauser & Wirth. Tell people about Arshile Gorky.

Hrag Vartanian: Okay. Absolutely. Well, first of all, I just want to say your listeners are amazing.

Alison Stewart: They are amazing.

Hrag Vartanian: They're really amazing. There's a show up now at Hauser & Wirth, the New York City show, which is really important in terms of Arshile Gorky being this important painter that was part of the whole New York school and help usher this period of great American painting after the World War II. I also want to mention at the Met, they have a really great Gorky, the Water of the Flowery Mill. And MoMA, believe it or not, has just put up a room of five of his paintings from the thirties and forties. If you're on the fifth floor of MoMA, you can go check them out there.

I think it's just an important thing to see because this is the hundredth anniversary of his arrival to New York. It's kind of this great moment of this artist that a lot of people may or may not know, and it allows them to re-explore someone who was really important for everyone from Willem de Kooning and all these other New York painters like Jackson Pollock. It's just really important to remember the painter's painter, that is Arshile Gorky. As an Armenian-American, I should mention that. He's a very influential figure in the community as well but in the world in general. I think it's really important.

Alison Stewart: We're going head up to the Met, perhaps Bonheur's best-known painting, The Horse Fair.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: So explain this picture.

Hrag Vartanian: This one is one of those paintings that in the 19th century, when it ended up at the Met, it became this incredibly important painting. The Vanderbilts actually donated it. It was the largest animal painting of its time. Of course, large paintings weren't usually done of animals, right? That was really unusual. And, you know, Bonheur was a very famous woman artist who made a career at painting in the 19th century, which was quite rare. She was openly lesbian, according to many art historians, which was also very rare, and she would wear pants. I have a little fact for you. Did you know that women technically were forbidden to wear pants in Paris up until 2013?

Alison Stewart: 2013?

Hrag Vartanian: 2013, even though it wasn't enforced for about a hundred years.

Alison Stewart: I don't know.

Hrag Vartanian: She was wearing pants to go as part of this image of herself of she would go to paint in the various stables and other places. But here you have this incredible scene of a horse fair. You see all the anatomy of the horses. You see these men guiding them around, and so much energy, and to think that horses took up such an important scene. It's a large painting. It's a very large painting. It's 2.5 by 5 meters. It became this really important painting of the time and still continues to create awe in the viewer, and I love that.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Seema from Brooklyn. Hi, Seema, thanks for calling All Of It.

Seema: Hi, Alison. Thanks for having me on. My name is Seema Lisa Pandya, and I'm going to do a little bit of shameless promotion here, but I do have a public art piece on view right now at Kingsland Wildflowers. It's a public green roof that's also managed by Newtown Creek Alliance in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It's right next to the iconic city's biodigesters that are right on Newtown Creek. The piece is called Resonant Nature, and it is made of sustainable material called rich light. It looks like a set of four progressively growing echo shapes that sits on this wildflower green roof, and it almost looks like it's echoing out into this incredible New York City skyline.

The piece, also at the very center of it, kind of focuses on a, I would say almost like a vulva shaped pollinator habitat for bees and beneficial insects to overwinter. It is on view at Kingsland Wildflowers through the spring. It went up in the fall, but just wanted to share that piece of work and that it's something that's also a work that's more than just for people.

Alison Stewart: Love that. Thank you so much for calling in. We got a text that says the murals at Bemelmans at the Carlyle. That's really fun.

Hrag Vartanian: Nice.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Jan from Westchester. Hi, Jan, thanks for calling All Of It.

Jan: Hi, thanks for having me. I wanted to comment, in the Marina of Battery Park City, there are bushes and grass fields, and there are fences around them and interwoven in the fences is a saying in copper. Let's say copper words by Mark Twain. It says "New York is a great city if they would only finish it."

Alison Stewart: Love it. Thank you, Jan, so much for calling in. All right, I think we've gotten to nine out of ten. Are you ready for the last one?

Hrag Vartanian: Let's do it.

Alison Stewart: All right. Duane Linklater.

Hrag Vartanian: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Okay. What then remains?

Hrag Vartanian: Ah, yes, one of the other hidden artworks in New York City. This one you're not going to be able to see, and that's why I kind of love it because it was actually an NYU's 20 Washington Square East Gallery. It was an exhibition that happened in 2017, and it's hidden in the wall. The intention is to do that because it's also bringing out how the indigenous traces of New York City are hidden.

A good example, of course, is Broadway, where Broadway was a former path that was built on an Algonquin or a Lenape path that sort of went up Manhattan, and people don't know that. This was about having something hidden in the city that people may not know is there, but the idea of it remains. That's what I think, you know, Duane Linklater's piece really says, and it's called What Then Remains from 2017.

Alison Stewart: And it's at NYU.

Hrag Vartanian: And it's at NYU in the gallery. Again, you're going to go there and look at a blank wall, or maybe something else will be hung on it, and that's kind of the beauty of it. It's kind of like the traces of indigenous culture in New York. Believe it or not, New York has the largest urban indigenous community in the country, but because they're from so many different communities, and they don't live in one neighborhood, you don't think of it. So it's a nice reminder that the indigenous roots of the city are everywhere.

Alison Stewart: We got a final text. "Diego Rivera's murals in the lobby of 30 Rock. I was walking through with my nephews playing tourist guide on our way to St. Patrick's Cathedral, and we stopped to marvel at the murals. One of the uniformed security doormen gave us some amazing background." That's important to realize that people who are around the artwork all the time have great, great stories.

Hrag Vartanian: They really do.

Alison Stewart: What do you hope people will take away from this conversation?

Hrag Vartanian: Well, I hope to go look and to explore and ask questions of the doorman sometimes or someone else or look up at the buildings. A lot of your listeners talked about the parks. I think that's important too because landscape architects are artists too. We should appreciate everything from Central Park to the little green spaces nestled on the streets, like here in this neighborhood, just to take some time. Like a lot of your listeners, there are living artists around us, and they're making work every day, and we're going to encounter them. I think that, to me, is an important lesson to take away. It's not only in museums, not only in galleries. They're everywhere, including hospitals.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Hrag Vartanian, the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic. He joined me for our WNYC Centennial series, 100 pieces of art you should see in New York City, our monthly take on great art in New York. Thank you so much for joining us.

Hrag Vartanian: Pleasure. Thank you.

 

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