Going through the archives - 1

What's scarier than looking at last year's photos? Not looking.

It takes a lot of files to fill up a modern hard drive but really, do I need to carry all those photos around? Of course not, so put them into storage and delete them from my laptop.

But simply putting them into storage is a quick and easy way of forgetting them. Therefor I've been reviewing and selecting. Some will become projects and some stand alone. These fall into the latter category for now.

I like them enough to share them.

I'll admit when I first saw this I thought to myself that she's going to have to either concentrate really hard or flap her hands a lot faster if she wants to get off the ground. Yet it's wonderful to see a person seemingly so serene in the center of the city. This was taken in Madison Square Park.

This guy needs to be careful because when you're walking around with a target strapped to your back somebody might just decide to take a pot shot at you. I believe he's aware of how ludicrous it seems to an observer but when you are riding your bike somewhere and you absolutely need to take your dart board with you, then you do what you have to do to get it there.

And finally this lady, who has just finished locking her bike to the rack and is off to have some fun in the city. There's somebody standing on the other side of her taking a picture, and I'm still wondering a year later if he was taking a shot of her. She certainly wasn't posing for either of us.

 Permalink

Posing for Someone - No. 2

These were shot at the Flatiron Plaza just south of Madison Square, NYC on Sunday 5/26/2013. The Empire State Building dominates the skyline north of Madison Square and deservedly attracts a lot of attention.

I am guessing that both of these guys are from out of town. The first guy stopped at the table where I was enjoying a cup of iced coffee and the view, to confirm that it was indeed the Empire State, and then tell me that eighty years ago it was the tallest building in the world. I guess so, and it was that way forty years ago, too. He walked toward 23rd St., put his camera on a table and promptly posed for himself. That woman behind him, talking on her mobile device, seemed to be watching him. when it comes to judging whether people on the phone on the street are attentive to anything outside their conversation, I am not sure whether his self-portraitizing was registering.


The second guy was just so happy to be in NYC on Memorial Day Weekend that he had to spread his arms and embrace the world. I guess when you voluntarily come here from someplace else, it's enough to bring joy.


Permalink

Summer has come to NYC: picture of the day

How do you know it's summer in NYC? By what people do in the park.

Permalink

Shalom Neuman at "Ideas City", May 4, 2013 - Lower East Side of Manhattan

Shalom Neuman is an artist who works in multiple dimensions. He is a proponent of art that engages the viewer in a way that invites the viewer to become a participant in the work, which is not finished until the viewer has become part of the creation. His work leaps out at you, it's hyper-saturated color both assaulting and engaging the eye, emitting sounds that range from subliminally recognizable to spoken texts, with flashing lights and sometimes buttons, switches or knobs to be pushed, flipped or twisted. They are constructed from the things that we played with as children and broken objects that are part of our daily lives.

At the New Museum's outdoor art festival, "Ideas City" on the Lower East Side on May 4, Shalom worked with some of his regular collaborators, The Unbearables and with a performance art group Scopiola! He helped Scopiola! get set up in a prime location in Sara Roosevelt Park, and then adorned himself with lights, masks and a well accoutered scooter, he cruised the festival as a kinetic sculpture. He and Ron Kolm distributed cards they created with a picture of a mustachioed Kim Kardashian as Wonder Woman on one side and an Unbearables manifesto on the reverse.

I caught up with Shalom and Ron during the festival and turned my camera on  them and on the reactions of their audience. Some got it right away, especially the children who were open to both the wonder and mystery of what Shalom was doing. 

The photos document and complete Shalom's work at the festival. 

Permalink