[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studio in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, we'll talk about how to winterize your home. The plant doctor is in, will be in studio. Get ready to call in with your houseplant care questions. Golden Globe winner actor Fernanda Torres and director Walter Salles will be here to talk about the new film, I'm Still Here. That's the plan, so let's get this started with some great art.

[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

Alison Stewart: We here at All Of It are celebrating WNYC's centennial with a year-long project to identify 100 pieces of art you should see in New York City. It's a totally unscientific-but-from-the-heart reminder that art is everywhere in New York City. Each month, we are asking an expert in the field who will give us their 10 picks. We've had on Will Heinrich from The New York Times, Sarah Douglas from ARTnews, Jerry Saltz from New York Mag, Hrag Vartanian from Hyperallergic, Thelma Golden from the Studio Museum, and artist Glenn Ligon. Today, we welcome The New Yorker art critic Jackson Arn. Nice to meet you, Jackson.

Jackson Arn: Hello, Alison. Good to meet you.

Alison Stewart: When you were making this list, what did you use as your criteria?

Jackson Arn: At the risk of just throwing everything out the window at first, I was told that the idea was 10 pieces of art that every single New Yorker must see. I was selfish about it and I just chose 10 pieces that I really like. I didn't think of any canon or any absolute must-see. I thought I would just be honest with myself and with you and talk about the things that have meant a lot to me. I don't even necessarily think that these are the 10 greatest pieces in New York or anywhere. For various personal and some impersonal reasons, they just happen to mean a lot to me as you'll find.

Alison Stewart: That's an excellent reason.

Jackson Arn: Can I also just say? It's good to be in a radio station. I was with KCR-FM New York in college.

Alison Stewart: Nice.

Jackson Arn: Always on your side of the station, though. It feels a little more nerve-wracking to be on the opposite side fielding the questions instead of asking them.

Alison Stewart: No problem. I'll be easy with you.

Jackson Arn: Oh, thank you.

Alison Stewart: Listeners. What is a piece of art that moves you in New York City? It could be public art. It could be part of a collection or maybe it's a gallery show that just hasn't left your mind. Give us a call or text us. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call in. You can join Jackson and me on the air or you can reach out on social media @AllOfItWNYC. You can also text that number, 212-433-9692. All right. On your list, this is great. Various CVS's and grocery stores that used to be other kinds of buildings.

Jackson Arn: [laughs] It's catchy, isn't it? Yes.

Alison Stewart: Give us an example.

Jackson Arn: Well, the one that comes to mind for me is the Trader Joe's that used to be a bank. It's in Brooklyn Heights on Court Street. I'm sure some of the listeners will be familiar.

Alison Stewart: Yes, I've been there.

Jackson Arn: Yes, so it's a Trader Joe's, but it used to be this grand, even grandiose bank building. I have done entirely too much shopping and specifically too much waiting in line and fiddling with my phone and reading magazines at that particular building. The reason that I wanted to talk about it is that I feel like this is an experience that so many New Yorkers have where they're walking down the street. Maybe you're on 14th and 8th and you see the bank that is now a CVS or you're on Flatbush. I used to live down in Flatbush. I think there's a bank that got converted into a CVS or a Duane Reade. I can't remember exactly, but I feel like one reaction to that is you just roll your eyes and think, "Oh, this beautiful building. Now, it's a tacky CVS."

Alison Stewart: Chain store.

Jackson Arn: A chain store. That's a fair first reaction, but I think that the second reaction should be, "Wait a second. I'm only stopping and noticing this beautiful old building because it's a CVS or a Trader Joe's." This is important to me because I think about being inside that gorgeous Trader Joe's in Brooklyn Heights and looking up at those high-vaulted ceilings. I don't know. It's like the perfect metaphor for being in New York City, isn't it? You're in a line. You're sweating. You're behind schedule. You're a little bit ornery, but just look around you. You're in this incredible, incredible place.

Alison Stewart: I always think that when I see the one on 14th and 8th, that dome that's on top of it. I'm thinking, "I'm going to go get lozenges in there."

Jackson Arn: Absolutely. Yes, right. I don't know. That's the story of New York, isn't it? You have these old, beautiful buildings. They're hollowed out and something else is put inside them. The warehouse becomes the place where you go to a rave and go dancing. The buildings and the artworks in New York are always changing.

Alison Stewart: We got a text here that says, "Work of art that inspires me, the Chrysler Building."

Jackson Arn: Sure.

Alison Stewart: "Public art that defines and inspires," our point of buildings being wonderful.

Jackson Arn: I give that a murmur of agreement.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] Let's talk to David in Montclair. Hi, David. Thank you so much for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

David: Well, thanks for having me. I would have to say the most impressive piece of art to me in New York is the Socrates painting by Jacques-Louis David. That is a very iconic image within the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Alison Stewart: When was the first time you saw it? Do you remember?

David: Probably about 25 years ago. I always make it a point whenever I'm at The Met to revisit it. I can share why. To me, it represents a very important time where art from the Age of Faith, the type of composition, the type of richness of character and epic presentation of what would be, historically, a biblical allegory is shown here now at the Age of Reason, where Socrates is at the moment of accepting his fate with all the onlookers. Much like the Last Supper and the fate and the emotion, it's like Doctor Zhivago in a sweeping epic. That's a philosophical narrative of just humanity.

Alison Stewart: David, thank you so much for calling. Up next on your list, Jackson, is a building. It's actually a monument that says, "To Brooklyn, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bailey." What's unique about the Bailey Fountain?

Jackson Arn: Oh, the Bailey Fountain, yes. This is another work of public art that I have a very personal relationship with because I'm living in Prospect Heights. I stroll when it's not as cold and miserable and blustery as it is lately. When I do stroll, I often find myself down by the Bailey Fountain. The Bailey Fountain is fantastic because my favorite part of it was sculpted by a fellow named Eugene Savage.

It is a sculpture of the sea god Nereus. It's a great thing that I love to visit in the middle of the day in between writing and reading. Nereus is this strange bloated figure. He just has this expression on his face that I have spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to parse. It's a groan that's also a gasp, that's also a sigh. In the summer, when the fountain is on and the water is splashing over him, it just never fails to put me in a good mood.

Alison Stewart: That's the Bailey Fountain in Prospect Heights. All right. I love what you picked for number three, the Jefferson Market Library.

Jackson Arn: Isn't it just the greatest?

Alison Stewart: It's the most beautiful building. Well, first of all, what do you want people to know about it? What do you want them to pay attention to?

Jackson Arn: So many things, but maybe just sticking with the theme so far. It's a building that was one thing, that became another thing. The Jefferson Market Library was originally a courthouse. It was designed by the architect, Frederick Clarke Withers. It is not a courthouse anymore, although you will still find that description written in the stone. It's a library. It's a library where back in the day when I was freelancing and I couldn't find a cafe, I did a lot of my work.

I would sit in the main building and there was a gorgeous stained glass window right next to me. It's another one of those buildings where I associate it with work and with mundane things because I did almost all of my writing there for the longest time. Then every so often, I would look up and I would look out. I would think, "Oh, my goodness, I'm just in one of the most extraordinary places in the city."

Alison Stewart: It cracks me up when I used to take my son there when he was little because you did have to fight for space. They've prevented it ever since. When it was 2008, 2009, you had to fight for space a little bit.

Jackson Arn: The real challenge for me for most of the time that I was going there is that they didn't have a public bathroom. That tended to thin out the crowd a little bit. It separated the freelancers from the casual visitors. The Lenwich across the street, a shout-out to Lenwich if I can give that, they were very, very generous with letting public library goers use their restroom. Thank you, Lenwich.

Alison Stewart: We are talking to Jackson Arn, New Yorker art critic. We're discussing the 100 must-see pieces of art in New York City. It's part of our All Of It coverage of WNYC's 100th anniversary. What piece of art moves you in New York City? 212-433-9692. Let's talk to Joe calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Joe.

Joe: Hi, Alison. There's a sculpture on Madison Avenue at the IBM building and it's called Levitated Mass. I would see this being built when I went to high school every day in 1982. It's a fascinating sculpture because it's a giant granite slab inside of a stainless steel tub. They run water underneath it, giving it the illusion that it's levitating. I love that sculpture. I drag people to see it when they come to the city if I can get them over there.

Also, just in line with what you were saying about buildings, I'm fascinated. Some of them are 100 years old. The remnants of the Childs Restaurants chain. It was a fish restaurant and beautiful. I don't know what you would call it, Art Deco or Art Nouveau. Mermaids and seahorses and all sorts of things. You'll see them all over the city.

Alison Stewart: Who knew? Thank you, Joe, for calling in. Let's talk to Leonard, who's calling us from Woodstock. Hey, Leonard, thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Leonard: Hi, Alison. One of the most wonderful things to see in New York outdoors is the Duke Ellington Monument at 110th Street and Fifth Avenue. If you go up there on your bicycle, you can spend a lot of time walking around the monument. There are lots of details. It's a very elegant, refined sculpture by Robert Graham. Another asset. Bring your binoculars. If you go there and walk around, there's a lot to see in this monument. Also, there's a public restroom not far from that monument in Central Park.

[laughter]

Jackson Arn: That's the key factor in all of these.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Gail, who is calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Gail, you're on the air.

Gail: Hello, yes. When I was a little kid, my parents had split up. My father was an artist. He would drag me around to museums, "Oh, I got to see one more painting before we go home." We were in the Museum of Modern Art. He wanted to see a Franz Kline painting. Across from that was Francis Bacon's 1946. I'm looking at this painting as my dad is looking at the Francis Kline. It just scared me and I just thought, "Oh, a painting can scare you and make you feel something?" It just changed my total trajectory and I've been painting ever since.

Jackson Arn: Bacon scares me too.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in. Okay, Jackson, Jackson Arn, New Yorker art critic, you have on your list the sculpture garden at the Noguchi Museum.

Jackson Arn: Yes, it's another outdoor shenanigan. It, as you can guess, features the work of the sculptor, Isamu Noguchi. For me, it's one of the most beautiful places of any kind in New York City. It's his greater than the sum of its parts because Noguchi not only contributed the sculpture, of course, but he designed all the plants. He chose, I should say, all the plants and shrubs.

He was very particular and exacting about the arrangement of the stones and the gravel and the tiniest detail and the effect when you go there. I recommend that everybody should, not just because the Noguchi Museum is having its 40th anniversary rehang this year, but just because it's a great place any day. The effect, I think, is that the sculptures don't feel so isolated from the rest of this environment. They blend or sink into things. They seem like a part of the foliage and the rock.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Barbara from Manhattan. Hi, Barbara. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Barbara: Hi. I suggest Balto. That's the dog sculpture in Central Park. For dog lovers, I think he's a hero. He led the team that took diphtheria, I think, to Nome during an epidemic in the early 1900s. He's a gorgeous dog and it's a gorgeous sculpture. I really think people should see that. It's just north of the zoo in Central Park.

Alison Stewart: Great. Thanks for calling. This one says Crack Is Wack by Keith Haring. When I'm stuck in traffic on the FDR, it is a pleasure to look at.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: We are discussing pieces of art that we love in New York City. My guest is Jackson Arn from The New Yorker. We'll have more of his picks and more of your calls after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Jackson Arn, New Yorker art critic. We are discussing 10 of his picks. There are 10 that will go into our 100 lists of things you need to see in New York City. All right, so the next three things are from The Met.

Jackson Arn: Yes, we had a caller a minute ago talk about how he loved the David painting of The Death of Socrates.

Alison Stewart: These are your three that you've picked. The first is from-- is it Annie or Anni?

Jackson Arn: Anni Albers.

Alison Stewart: Anni Albers. It's fiber art. It's really interesting. It's green woven in with brown and red. Each kind of texture is different.

Jackson Arn: Yes, it couldn't be more different from the other painting at The Met that David mentioned a moment ago. That's what I like about it. It's phenomenally simple. It has a number of ingredients that you could count on the fingers of one hand. It's a small number of different kinds of cotton thread woven together. There's just this heartbreaking simplicity about it. The way that she uses this incredible economy or poverty of material to create this beautiful swooning sensation.

Alison Stewart: It's called Pasture, by the way.

Jackson Arn: Yes, I should have mentioned that. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: All right, the next one. You wrote a whole piece about this in The New Yorker, so I'm going to let you explain. The Siena show.

Jackson Arn: Yes, this is a thing that you can only see at The Met temporarily, so I extra, extra, extra recommend that you do. The Siena show that is there right now of Trecento Sienese painting is not to be missed. If there were one thing that I could recommend you see there, I would recommend Madonna del Latte by the great Sienese painter, Ambrogio Lorenzetti. It's a very familiar theme in Western art, the image of the Madonna nursing the baby Jesus. What I love about Ambrogio's take on this very familiar religious subject is that it's weird.

You look at it and you see how incredibly weird the subject always is. It's just a subject that you're so used to seeing and so familiar with that you forget how bizarre it is that you have the baby Jesus, who is both an omnipotent deity and also just a baby. In this particular version of it, Jesus is breastfeeding. What is so fascinating about it for me is that one half of him is turned toward his mother's breast as he nurses and the other eye is turned out at us, almost as if it's commanding us to watch and worship this strange, almost ritualistic scene. It's so bizarre and it's so beautiful. I love it.

Alison Stewart: The next piece of The Met is featured in this book, which I love, called The Story of Art Without Men. [chuckles]

Jackson Arn: Oh, Katy Hessel, sure.

Alison Stewart: Yes, it's really interesting. It's Leonora Carrington. It's called Self-Portrait. She was described in this book as a runaway English debutante.

Jackson Arn: Correct. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: She has wild hair in this picture.

Jackson Arn: In real life too, yes.

Alison Stewart: How did she become a painter?

Jackson Arn: She became a painter, I think, because she was always fascinated by art. She ran in circles where art was of pressing daily concern to her friends and her family, I suppose. She brushed shoulders with Max Ernst, the famous surrealist painter. She was indeed a runaway debutante as the author says because she ended up in Mexico eventually. You mentioned her hair being so large in the painting. I think that boils down part of what I love about it. It's a painting that defies gravity. She is sitting in a chair in this painting and there are objects that are half-fixed to the floor or the walls, but you almost get the sense that everything is like a helium balloon. If you just gave it the tiniest little poke, then it would go floating out the window.

Alison Stewart: We've got a, let's see here, text. "Hi, Alison. My favorite artwork in New York City are the wisteria stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany at The Met. The courtyard they are in is so serene and the windows are so beautiful. I swear I look at them and I feel the pain of a corset as they transport you to the Gilded Age." Let's see. "Work that inspires me. I am always moved by the Atlas statue in Rock Center. It always felt poignant to me. Whenever I'm passing by, I take a moment to reflect on it." Here's another text. "The restored ceiling at Grand Central Terminal. It's among the finest pieces of public art and architecture in the country." Let's talk to Nicole, who's calling us from the Upper West Side. Hi, Nicole, you're on the air.

Nicole: Hi. I especially like the subway tile art, the mosaics that you'll see all over the MTA. There's one in particular at the Bedford Avenue station. It's a piece by Marcel Dzama. The list and everything comes together. It's just this awesome circus with ballerinas and animals and super vibrant.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling. Let's talk to Emily in Ocean Pines. Hi, Emily. Thanks for calling.

Emily: Hi. Thank you. I recently moved out of Brooklyn after 23 years of living there. My alma mater is Pratt Institute. That's one thing. The sculpture grounds of the campus are really beautiful. I wanted to bring up the Brooklyn Public Library, the Central Library, which is a very special place to me. The library is actually shaped like a book, the architecture of it. The front facade has these beautiful bronze sculptures of American literary figures and the inscriptions on the side of the library, literary inscriptions. Also, just the building and the whole plaza area in general are beautiful. It just holds a really special place in my heart having lived there for a long time and spent a lot of time in the library. Thanks.

Alison Stewart: Appreciate your call. Thank you so much. All right. We've arrived at MoMA. We've left Met. We're going down to MoMA, Jacob. I mean, sorry, give it away, Jackson.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: It's Jacob Lawrence.

Jackson Arn: Jacob Lawrence, yes.

Alison Stewart: Jacob Lawrence, the Great Migration. He said, "I do not look upon the story of the Blacks in America as a separate experience to the American culture but as part of American heritage and experience as a whole." How does he tell the story of the Great Migration?

Jackson Arn: He tells the story of the Great Migration in 60 tempera paintings that are-- I used the phrase "heartbreakingly simple" a minute ago for Albers. I think that applies for these as well. They're spare. They're often of rooms that are empty or ever so close to being empty. Just a couple of figures in a courthouse or a cathedral or a bedroom. It's the simplicity, I think, that lets you into the image in a way. You see this mystery and you see this economy of means. You almost project your own feelings about these people and your own hopes for them and your own belief in the power of migration as this of universal odyssey that everybody has some feeling about.

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

Linda: Oh, I'm so delighted to speak with you. I have to speak for the Seagram Building on Park Avenue. I moved to New York from Michigan in the '60s. That building represented making it in the real world. It was my first job. The sophistication of it just really thrilled me. I felt like Holly Golightly. [chuckles] It really was getting into the real world, I thought.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling. Let's talk to Oren from Manhattan. Hi, Oren, you're on the air.

Oren: Hi. Thanks for taking the call. I think it would be really hard to talk or even think about art in New York without talking about the Frick museum, which we're very lucky to have reopening in April, I believe. It's hard to pick out one painting from that incredible collection, which you can keep. The paintings never change. I guess they occasionally get some new works to show, but it's the same collection that's been there since the museum opened. You go back through your life and experience the paintings over and over again.

It's hard to just pick one. I guess I'll go back to one that I remember first loving when I was a teenager, which is the Rembrandt portrait of The Polish Rider, which, like so many of the pictures in the museum, just gets your imagination going and makes you wonder, "What's the story behind this painting? Who was this person?" Every time I go back to the Frick and look at a painting like that, I see it a different way. It's a wonderful thing that New Yorkers get to do.

Alison Stewart: That's what's wonderful about art in New York. Thank you so much for calling. My guest is Jackson Arn. He's The New Yorker's art critic. We're discussing the 100 pieces of art you must see in NYC. These are his 10 suggestions. Please give us a call if you want to tell us what piece of art really moves you in New York. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC We've arrived at Picasso. It's a very famous painting depicting life in Paris at a dance hall in Montmartre. When was this about? 1900?

Jackson Arn: This was 1900 exactly, yes.

Alison Stewart: Okay, I'm going to let you say it because my French accent is bad.

Jackson Arn: Oh gosh, mine, I'm sure, is even worse. One thing I like about being an art critic is that I just get to type things. I never have to pronounce them.

Alison Stewart: It's tough as it is. I tell you.

Jackson Arn: All right, here it goes. Le Moulin de la Galette.

Alison Stewart: Perfect.

Jackson Arn: Did I nail it?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you did. [laughs]

Jackson Arn: Probably not, whatever. It's at the Guggenheim and it was painted in 1900. You know what'll make you mad? Picasso was 19 years old when he painted that.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Jackson Arn: He was a teenager. He was just getting started. One fascinating thing for me about this painting is that even though he's just getting started and he's basically just a boy, the painting is late. It's late at night. You get the sense that the viewer is late to the party. Everyone else has already taken their seat and already had way too many drinks and had started to dance. Picasso was late to the subject too because at that point in art history, Le Moulin de la Galette had already been painted dozens of times by the Impressionists and Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Alison Stewart: Interesting.

Jackson Arn: It was a very well-attested subject. I think that's what I love about it. Picasso's late, but he doesn't care that it's been done before. He still makes it his own.

Alison Stewart: This is a text, "St. John the Divine, the largest Gothic cathedral in the Western Hemisphere in Morningside Heights, is magical on its own and full of interesting and inspiring art." Let's talk to Liz from Manhattan. Hi, Liz. Thanks for calling.

Liz: Yes, hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi.

Liz: I wanted to tell you about the Triangle Fire Memorial. It's newly installed last fall after many years of a wonderful coalition. I remember the Triangle Fire Coalition made this happen. It's a labor of love from the labor movement and artists and other community activists. It's a memorial to the 146 mostly young women who died in the tragic fire of the garment factory in 1911.

In the aftermath of this tragic fire, many laws changed. Frances Perkins, later, the first woman cabinet member and first labor secretary under FDR, called it the beginning of the New Deal for all of the reforms that flowed out of it. I just want to say, the memorial itself is elegant. It's moving. It's very original. It requires a deep engagement. You have to actually go up and look and reflect. It's at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place.

Alison Stewart: Liz, thank you so much for calling. Let's talk to Richard from Babylon. Hey, Richard, thank you so much for calling in.

Richard: Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call, Alison. I appreciate it. I love your show every day.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Richard: This is kind of a comic relief thing, I guess. My understanding was that there's a statue dedicated to William Henry Seward, the Secretary of State who was instrumental in the purchase of the Alaska territories from Russia. The statue is on the west side of Madison Square Park, I guess, just north of 23rd Street. My understanding was that, in a cost-cutting thing, they used a lower torso from the neck down of Abraham Lincoln in his normal position, legs crossed. Then they had a separate sculpture of Seward's head on top. Seward was not a tall man, whereas Lincoln was.

I guess it was a cost-savings thing where they wanted to have something for Seward but saved money by just using the lower part of the body of Lincoln in this seated position. It's kind of interesting if, in fact, that is the truth. I just wanted to bring that up that people are looking. I walked past it for decades on my way from Penn Station down to my office at Park Avenue South. It was kind of a comic relief. I don't know if that's a thing you want to take people to just to get a little laugh about it.

Alison Stewart: We appreciate it. Thank you so much for calling. I'm going to check that out next time I'm--

Jackson Arn: If anyone ever builds a statue of me, I would like to be much taller.

Alison Stewart: Lincoln? [laughs]

Jackson Arn: Yes, Lincoln from the neck down would be great.

Alison Stewart: All right, we've come to your final choice, Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert.

Jackson Arn: Yes, we had a caller a moment ago talk about their affection for the Frick. It's an affection that I definitely share. The Frick was the first museum in New York that I ever went to. I was about 12 years old. That painting in particular, Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert, is one that I fell in love with almost right away. It's a painting that I've gone back to see many times. It's a painting about being in the middle of nowhere, being far from civilization, but I just fell in love with it almost right away. Yes, the Frick does reopen this spring. I'm very excited to take another gander at it.

Alison Stewart: Jackson Arn is The New Yorker art critic. Thank you for coming to the studio and for making a list for us. We really appreciate it.

Jackson Arn: Hey, Alison, thank you so much.