NYC 2016!

I went to New York in August! It was my fifth time there, my fourth solo adventure. It means a lot to me to go to New York, which I try to do every few years. It energizes and enlivens me in particular ways -- intellectually and sensorially, of course, but also emotionally. I used to think that I wanted to live there, but that's increasingly untrue. Instead, this is what I want: a lifelong relationship with it. When I'm there, enveloped by masses of bodies and buildings, in near-constant motion yet situated, appreciably, at some still point between past and future, I am frequently, inexplicably, on the verge of tears; I feel that I belong there, more than other places -- but then I remind myself that when I'm there, I'm on vacation.

I usually plan my NYC excursions around shows, typically performances, but this time, it was Future Present, the Guggenheim's exhibition of the work of Bauhuas multimedia artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (opening soon in Chicago!). I'd only seen one or two Moholy-Nagy pieces in person before, at the Gropius House outside Boston a couple years ago, and I've been hungry for more ever since. I started getting obsessed with seeing this show once I read about it...I even had dreams about it. So upon arriving to the to the city, getting to the Guggenheim was my first order of business.



Also on my to-do list this visit was the Central Park Conservatory Garden, Louis Kahn's Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island, Alan Sonfist's 1978 Greenwich Village installation Time Landscape, the new Whitney Museum of American Art, and 101 Spring Street, the recently reopened onetime home and studio of Donald Judd, now operated as a permanent installation/quasi-museum. I photographed extensively at all these locations when I could, as well as around the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, where I stayed with friends and where I had a good opportunity to try my hand at street photography. Here are 60 or so of my favorite shots from a memorable trip (a lot, I know, but these were whittled down from my original 300....). You can view them below, in a column, with captions, or else open a scrolling gallery by clicking any one of them.

Man sneezing outside the Jewish Museum

Central Park Conservatory Garden

Home for the week! Across the street is Prospect Park.

On the tram to Roosevelt Island

Franklin D Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park was designed by architect Louis Kahn in the early 1970s but remained unbuilt until 2012, long after his death.

Back in Midtown -- surprise Frank Stella piece in a corporate lobby

James Turrell light installation inside another Midtown lobby. Couldn't shoot inside, alas.

Crossing Brooklyn Bridge by bike

Chris Burden's "Ghost Ship," installed on the facade of the New Museum.

Loved this work of architecture criticism, a review of the new Whitney scrawled on an official poster for the new Whitney that was pasted on the wall of a subway tunnel. I can't say I feel the same way as the author, but do love the style.

Several fantastic shows on view at the Whitney, including photography by Danny Lyon -- really beautiful, moving work documenting social strife and marginalized people.

Another great show: paintings by the modernist Stuart Davis (1892-1964), previously unknown to me

Watching Charles Atlas videos, part of a great portraits show.

101 Spring Street...the original artist's loft

I couldn't photograph inside, but you can see the Dan Flavin installation on the top floor, the onetime bedroom of Donald Judd and his wife.

IM Pei's Silver Towers in Greenwich Village, where I visited my friend Danielle and her daughter Agnes, as well as "Bust of Sylvette," a 60 ton sculpture by Pablo Picaso (cast by Carl Nesjar)

Chilling with Picasso

Quite a view from Silver Towers

Sunset on concrete