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.It's a list he curated, and he writes for Big Apple adventurers yearning for the unknown, the unnoticed, and the unexpected.of “All of It” to discuss where to find unexpected art in the city, and WNYC listeners called in to share their suggestions.
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.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.
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. 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.
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.
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.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.