Alienation in Depictions of New York City

New York is a city of unprecedented size and influence. For many, it represents new opportunities and fresh starts. For some, it is a monument to American greatness and innovation. For others, it is simply the reality that they have to deal with. A city cannot offer a unitary experience for all its residents. Furthermore, the myriad experiences of New York are reflected in the variety of artworks that depict it. This exhibit is a visual argument that claims that depictions of New York City have not all been celebratory. Many of them contain currents of anxiety or confusion. Although some artworks have been made as a testimony to the city’s greatness, others have been offered as counternarratives that focus on the alienation that accompanies living in such a massive metropolis. Although this exhibition will not exclusively contain objects of the latter kind, it will focus on them.

Parade

Jane Peterson

ca. 1917–19

Gouache, watercolor, charcoal, and graphite on gray wove paper.

23 15/16 x 18 in.

MET: 1976.387

Parade is not an exemplary piece for this exhibit. Rather, it is shown as an example of a narration that the rest of the artworks resist; namely, that New York City is a towering monument to American ingenuity and progress. The column on the left evokes the city’s supposed power and acts as the painting’s claim to its own validity in a neoclassical lineage. The simple compositional construction of rectangles argues that New York is firm, stable, and rational. The following works do not have such a triumphant view of the city.

New York City

John Marin

1932

Watercolor and crayon on paper.

5 3/8 x 4 1/8 in.

Met Accession Number: 49.70.152

John Marin’s New York City depicts a fragmented, chaotic New York. It conveys the experience of being in a rapidly modernizing city wherein one may, upon turning a street corner, encounter objects and scenarios one doesn’t have sufficient experiential categories for. Marin’s abstraction depicts a city that is not friendly, but neither is it hostile; it belongs to an alien category of its own. Marin’s illogical placement of interiors and exteriors mimics the urban experience of constant transition between private and public spaces.

Blind Woman, New York

Paul Strand

1916

Platinum print photograph.

13 3/8 × 10 1/8 in.

Met Accession Number: 33.43.334

It’s impossible to know everyone in New York City. Furthermore, one has an immense degree of choice in whom one chooses to know. Places of business have an immense pool of candidates from which to draw. Strand gives us a glimpse into the world of those whom the city has rejected as ineffective and unprofitable. Strand uses tight cropping to create a sense of immobilization and constraint, bolstered by the closeness of the brick wall. This serves as a challenge to the city’s promise of opportunity for all.

New York #2

Hedda Sterne

1953

Oil on canvas.

78 × 34 1/8 in.

Met Accession Number: 2017.99

Hedda Sterne’s New York #2 conveys the experience of depersonalization in a post-industrial city. This is accomplished through an aerial view that transports the scene from the realm of the individual agent into the realm of aggregate movements. It is further accomplished by the painting’s cold, limited color pallet, which characterizes the city in terms of a unitary productive function. Sterne’s abstraction, seen in the blurred lines of vague, entangled overpasses, evokes a sense of alienation from the particulars of city life.

New York

William Klein

1954

Gelatin silver print photograph.

14 3/4 x 11 in.

Met Accession Number: 1989.1038.2

Klein’s New York is blurred by intoxicated movement. The indefinite, shadowy forms of the photograph, in combination with its subject’s indeterminate expression, confess its being a momentary capture. No New York club can ever afford the same cast of characters, and this is captured by the fleetingness of the photograph. Klein gives us a glimpse into the nightlife of New York, characterized by the escapism necessary to experience some respite from the pressure to be maximally productive. Rest is unaffordable, but gin is not. The city never sleeps.