The Arts in New York City
Coney Island and the High Line speak volumes of the diversity in experiences and people one can find in New York. “Conceived more than 100 years apart, these two New York City sites are both products of their times, reflecting different ideas about recreation, culture, and society.” The differences between Coney Island and the High Line suggested in the above statement from our class syllabus put the contrast between these locations mildly. Coney Island is connected to the amusement side of recreation; fun at the beach, the thrill of the rides, a night at the ballpark, the occasional fireworks show, but also to something grittier. Coney Island isn’t exactly clean, in any sense of the word, but that’s a part of the fun, at least in my mind. The High Line used to have a similar feel to it in the city; natural but unruly plant life, the occasional homeless person, but now that it’s been turned into a park it fits in with some of its more artsy surroundings.
I went to Coney Island on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, I can’t remember which. The sky was cloudy and the air was cool; it felt like one of the first days of autumn. I took the Q there instead of the B36, thinking I could get some good photos of the area from the window, but none of them turned out well. Coming out of the station, I walked past Nathan’s and MCU Park before heading to the boardwalk, and from there I went to Luna Park. I’ve been to Coney Island nearly every summer I can remember, so there wasn’t all that much I wanted to do, especially since I went alone. It was coming out of park that I noticed something interesting. Outside of Nathan’s a 
group of motorcyclists had gathered for some kind of small concert. Weaving through the crowd of onlookers, I couldn’t help but think of my uncle. He wore a rather long beard and always had on a pair of dark sunglasses, so he had something of the biker look to him. When he visited Coney Island with my father and I, my uncle and the bikers would sometimes lock eyes for a while or simply nod without saying a word, as though they recognized a kindred spirit in each other.
Going to the High Line was a little more difficult for me. I missed my stop on the way there and almost got on the wrong train when I had to transfer. And once I arrived, it was already raining heavily. The rain wasn’t a total hindrance though, as it did make the park smell fresher, adding to the whole nature experience. I was a little surprised, actually, about how much I enjoyed being there. The plant life provided a scenic contrast with the surrounding buildings, and the view over the streets was wonderful.
What really caught my attention though, were the benches. I’m not entirely sure why, but I really like the way they come out of the structure instead of being separate pieces. Leaving the High I took the first set of steps I saw and got lost trying to find the station. But before I did that, I noticed a piece of graffiti on a building close to the park and took some photos. I would later find out that it was Monsieur Chat that I photographed, a graffiti cat that originated in France. More information on him can be found here.
Not far from M. Chat was another piece of graffiti, one that read RIP High Line. I don’t know what the artist’s intended message was, but what I took away from it was a lamentation of the High Line that had been abandoned, 
but not yet turned into a park, an emotion expressed by Joel Sternfeld, “He would not just like the High Line to be saved and made into a promenade; he would like the promenade as it exists now to be perpetuated, a piece of New York as it really is” (Gopnik). Having known the High Line only as a park, I can’t completely relate, but I can understand the idea as it relates to Coney Island. The renovations it’s received are improvements, but I still feel like they’ve taken away some of the character of the island.
Work Cited
Gopnik, Adam. “A Walk on the High Line.” The New Yorker May 21, 2001: 44-49. Print.
It’s the combination of the jungle that we pave over
And the swamp jungle where our ancestors became soldiers
Struggling to establish a civilization
But when we built it we took away from nature
Like the quilt of the Earth, we tore it
We lost it and became a stranger
But it’s stranger still that we will
Rebuild what’s gone when we can no longer
Stand the sight of giant steel monsters
Bearing their teeth so we took a creation and fostered
A relationship of the past with the present
It was fast when we sent it
And this park built joins those worlds with a vengeance
An old path is where it was created
Underground scheming and calculating, like math, not to have it slated
Debated, whether or not to connect with what we lost
But we never had it, no message inscribed that was faded
And this park is raised like the hopes we have in a vision
To give beauty to this city, and the gray streets that are now hated
With great precision, landscaped with the rail line, as a collision
The two worlds can combine, but what we had hoped for really isn’t
It’s a joke cuz we have failed in our mission
Pretty, from the gritty and gives us peace and serenity
But it’s not natural, not crafted by divinity
Nonetheless, between man and God there was synergy
An energy, something we can grasp and work off of
To revive from the last, one last gasp, at what we all lost
Two of the more exciting places in New York City to visit are Coney Island and the High Line amusement park. Both areas are a magnet for tourists and locals alike, and both are marvels that show the evolution of the city from the early 20th century to the early 21st century. Coney Island developed as a spot that would rival the architectural feats that Manhattan had achieved and act as a place for amusement and leisure in an otherwise busy and unsmiling city. The High Line was established only a few short years ago, and was built on an old railroad line. Many wanted this dilapidated crossing to be torn down, but with the support of many park enthusiasts, this rail line transformed into a place for relaxation and tranquility.
Coney Island is a gigantic beach/amusement park that attracts thousands of visitors in the summer. The old and young all gather to swim, dine, and go on the numerous rides in Luna Park. Coney Island functions as a neighborhood haven, with a family feel to it that one doesn’t necessarily get from going to Disneyland or Six Flags, because of the lack of neighborhood atmosphere. This haven is a landmark that everyone in New York City knows about, and its established legacy makes it almost iconic. In contrast, the High Line Park is relatively new and not as well known. It isn’t as mutually loved as Coney Island is, because there is still a small minority who wish the park wasn’t built, and instead wish that the old railroad was removed. However, the High Line is still widely visited and eventually may become as accepted and as known as Coney Island. The High Line, like Coney Island, provides a means of escape for those in the city. However, unlike the powerful and loud atmosphere that Coney Island has, the High Line is all about enjoying yourself with some peace and quiet.
Coney Island is well known for its boardwalk, but what I found particularly dazzling was the pier near the end of the boardwalk. That pier stretches deep into the water and from afar almost appears to be stretching out infinitely. The pier is special because it allows you to venture into the waters without actually leaving dry land. Once at the end of the pier, I felt as if the main boardwalk was in another world and I was looking out at the happy beachgoers, who were light years away from me. In addition, another rare and amusing oddity in Coney Island was the assortment of trashcans with designs on them. Some cans had a smiling sun, and others had a rainbow sailing past the boardwalk. The idea of creating artistic pieces with something as simple as trashcans was something very Brooklyn in my opinion. It reflected a belief that anything can be made beautiful, even something as simple and unsightly as a trashcan. And at the same time, this is essentially what Coney Island is; taking a drab stretch of beach and filling it up with so many lights that it almost becomes Brooklyn’s Time Square at night.
The High Line didn’t fall short of my expectations, and the beautiful landscaping wasn’t even the best part of the park. Inside were quirky attributes that gave the High Line a very playful touch. One of my favorite things in the park was the water fountain. Well, more specifically, all of the water fountains throughout the park. These fountains all did one thing which I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing anywhere else; they spoke to you. As my friends and I took a drink, a female voice sprung out from the fountain, talking to us about water. I was caught so off guard that I was unable to understand the rest of her message, but the point was clear and simple; the High Line was going to go above and beyond in all possible ways. Along with the water fountains were strange horizontal waterfalls that almost gave a beach-like feel to the park. One woman even dipped her feet in the waterfall to see if it was real. The High Line was already different in its creation because, after all, it had been built from an old railroad line. But with these little quirks, it seemed even more amazing to me.
In Delirious New York, Koolhaus talks about Coney Island and how it was meant to be a pleasure center for visitors. One look at Coney Island made it clear that everything built there was to excite and enthrall anyone who came. In addition, Koolhaus mentions that Coney Island is an artificial world built for those who can’t go out and experience it firsthand. On page 37 he notes: “…the ability to ride a horse is a form of sophistication not available to the people who have replaced the original visitors [inhabitants]”, when explaining the creation of Steeplechase Park. When visiting Coney Island, this description comes to mind. The fishing games remind me of those who would visit the park to experience a life that they couldn’t enjoy in the city, a life of fishing and hunting for themselves. In addition, the fire truck ride in the current Coney Island seemed to be homage to the midget firefighters who battled the flames that brought down Coney Island in the early 20th century. This ride provided one of many links of the old Coney Island to the new.
Gopnik and Goldberger both talked about the High Line and its connection with nature, because after the rail line became untouched, it eventually grew into a literal urban jungle. One of the themes of the High Line was to preserve the natural feel while still creating a new park for everyone to enjoy. I felt that the park did some justice to this notion, because the rail lines and some of the natural foliage remained, but overall it had become more artificial than not. And that, in a way, symbolizes both Coney Island and New York in general. This entire city is artificial, and in our struggle to return to a more natural state of living we’ll either mock it, as the rides in Coney Island do, or we’ll tear down natural greenery and plant other vegetation, just to achieve a natural feel. In essence, we can never truly return to nature while still inhabiting the city, although it seems people will constantly develop new means of doing so.
Goldberger, Paul. “Miracle Above Manhattan.” National Geographic April 2011: 122-137. Print.
Gopnik, Adam. “A Walk on the High Line.” The New Yorker May 21, 2001: 44-49. Print.
Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New York: Monacelli Press, 1994. Print.
The site observation assignment asks you to integrate material from at least one of three assigned readings. When you quote from your chosen work(s) in the essay, include MLA-style in-text citations where appropriate, and include a Works Cited listing at the end of your blog post. We’re cheating a bit because two of the pieces were magazine articles originally in print, but they were provided to the class as PDFs. For this assignment, if you make use of the Goldberger or Gopnik articles, your in-text citation is fine just listing the author’s name without specific page number. However, if you are quoting from Kohlhaas, please include page number(s). An example:
Interest in developing the High Line site increased after September 11, 2001, as people turned to the project as something positive which could be done in the wake of the attacks (Goldberger).
Here is the correct Works Cited format for each work:
Goldberger, Paul. “Miracle Above Manhattan.” National Geographic April 2011: 122-137. Print.
Gopnik, Adam. “A Walk on the High Line.” The New Yorker May 21, 2001: 44-49. Print.
Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York. New York: Monacelli Press, 1994. Print.
Fluxus was more than a movement; it was a revolution, a new approach to art, against the constraining standards of past traditional artists, to liberate art from the common perception of “sophistication” bestowed upon it by present-day people, derived from modern art museums. These “institutionalized prisons” only intensified this image of art by dividing works into different sections such that each one was comprised of those most subject-related, followed by a certain arrangement of objects and an implementation of a “no-touch” policy. However, if George Maciunas, the founder of the Fluxus movement, was to visit the “Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life” exhibit at the Grey Art Gallery at NYU, he would have been extremely disappointed and condemned the curators who orchestrated this “funeral” for Fluxus.
According to Maciunas, art was meant to be manipulated and applicable in society by challenging artistic expression and provoking various responses from people. Best exemplified by Yoko Ono’s “Painting to Be Stepped On,” a piece of canvas on the floor with its name literally denoting its purpose, Fluxus’ attitude was considered to be insulting and disrespecting to traditional art. Adding on to the anti-conformity was the distortion of every day objects, including the recordings of cacophonies of random sounds, a clock measuring length instead of time, a television set displaying altered electrical current, a strip of clear film continuously looping, etc. Individual sections were labeled to question broad life topics such as freedom and love.
Contrived from a manifesto, Fluxus’ concept was a combination of intermedia and fluidity because of the facilitation of intermedia currents in the process of promoting its form of art to all types of people, regardless of whether or not they process prior artistic knowledge. To grant future generations the privilege of experiencing Fluxus, an appropriate preservation method for Fluxus art pieces must be adopted. Though the issue is controversial and still remains a complete mystery, the Grey Art Gallery desecrated its legacy by following the traditional ways of art museums and failing to enable physical interactions between art and people.
I constantly find myself asking questions like, “What is art?,” “What is the meaning of this[everything]?,” and especially, ”What am I?” These are the questions that the idea of Fluxus attempts to answer through what they consider art. The problems with such a task are; is this really art and are they answering the questions.
In my opinion, the idea of Fluxus is more art than the actual pieces themselves. Upon visiting the Grey Art Gallery, the events scores and flux boxes, for example, were quite intriguing. They were truly simple and creative. Art can be simple but brilliant, but that’s only when you intend to create something brilliant without the intention of being simple. I feel as if the people who crafted, or even just came up with these pieces, purposely tried to be simple in their pursuit of brilliance. That is why I can’t consider them great pieces of art.
This brings me to another point, is this stuff even art in the first place? Honestly, I don’t think most of it is. I guess I can consider the painting on the floor art, and even the television tubes with the adjusted screens, but the “G-d in a Box” piece, not at all. Some idiot just placed random stuff in a case and sealed it shut. That screams desperation to me. I think it’s fair to say that art is what affects people. I also believe that some actual work should be incorporated into the project, a little more than gluing or pasting some stuff together.
I was left with more questions than answers after viewing the exhibit. The brochure explained to me the questions that Fluxus is intended to answer, yet if anything, he pieces only represented those topics. They didn’t actually provide answers, and no matter how the “artists” describe the explanations, I still wont get it.
I can’t say the whole exhibit was all bad though. I actually found the “Star-Spangled Hot Dog” quite peculiar, in a good way. I’m just hoping there wasn’t a real hot dog under all the glitter. I found most interesting, though, the door with the caution around it. That was the first thing that caught my eye when I entered the gallery. I really just wanted to step over the tape and touch it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to. I guess it’ll just have to be a venture for another day.
On Thursday September 1st, the Macaulay freshman class and I visited the Macaulay Center in Manhattan to go meet some documentary film makers and learn about the art of making a documentary film. I, probably like most of my classmates, was really annoyed to have to travel right after school straight to Manhattan when the weekend was right around the corner and freedom was so close, but we went anyway because it was a Macaulay requirement and we had no choice. I initially thought it would be boring, but even though the dark room and comfy auditorium chairs almost made me fall asleep, I managed to stay awake for the entire first film, which was fairly interesting. It was about former Von Dutch partner Bobby Vaughn, and the struggles he faced trying to relocate to Queens and start a clothing company after a murder allegation against him in Los Angeles. The documenters were a former graduate of the Macaulay Honors program and a professor currently teaching in the city. They both chose to make a documentary on this man because he was an interesting character in the community and he was reaching out to help the neighborhood he lived in, so the documenters also wanted to be in support of that. I found the movie, especially his account of fighting off an attack by his best friend only to then take his life, very interesting.
The documenters also talked about the process of making a film. Besides choosing a topic that would be exciting enough to make a movie on, they also had to get the funding, the supplies, and the manpower to make a film. The student who graduated from Macaulay, whose name I’ve forgotten, talked about the relative ease of getting technology good enough to make a feature film. He said that this was the easiest time for an amateur to make a film, because now it only cost a few thousand dollars to buy a good camera and rolling tape. They also mentioned that while shooting the film took only a month or so, editing the entire film took a year, which was pretty shocking to hear. I have more respect for filmmakers now, even though I didn’t think their job was easy before this event either. But it was pretty interesting to see someone be able to make a film and to learn some of the techniques on getting the entire piece put together.
Before attending the “Fluxus, and the Essential Questions of Life” exhibit I wasn’t exactly sure what Fluxus was. I had a vague idea from our discussions in class and reading “Lunch Poems”, but hadn’t been able to concretize it in my head. Only after viewing the art that isn’t art yet is art in person did I realize that there is no definition for Fluxus past “an art movement of the 1960’s”. The fact that there is no clear explanation that can capture the movement is reminiscent of the movement itself. Fluxus is questions and answers, yes and no, and everything and nothing. Fluxus asks and replies without actually providing an answer.
The artists were looking at everything and questioning, while turning it into an art form. The exhibit was set up according to what the pieces were asking of their audiences. In the section entitled “Nothingness?” Nam June Paik’s “Zen for TV” and “Zen for Film” asked us if the blank screens in front of us were indeed blank. Does the fact that there is nothing on the screen except a line or static make it empty? Is anything ever truly empty?
In the section called “God?” we saw Ben Vautier’s “Fluxbox Containing God”. This piece was created to entice even the most hardcore skeptics to try to open it. However, the box is glued shut which shows the artist’s (or is he a non-artist?) doubt in whether God exists or not and puts those same thoughts in the head of one who tries to open the box and is disappointed.
Fluxus is unlike many other art movements in its accessibility. Anyone who wants to can pick up an event score and follow it in their own way, giving themselves a piece of Fluxus. There are no limitations or rules; anything can be art, which brings me back to my original question. What is Fluxus?
This past Thursday night we were all privileged enough to see the documentary titled “Facing The Waves.” It told us the story of the Von Dutch co-founder Bobby Vaughn, his recent struggles and how he plans on “bouncing back” from those struggles. The main controversy that surrounded Vaughn was the justified homicide charge against him for the killing of his life long friend Mark Rivas. Bobby told the documentarians the story of the night in very broad strokes: alcohol fueled rage, getting stabbed by a beer bottle and finally wrestling the gun away from his friend and unloading it into him. In the aftermath Bobby lost custody of his son and fled to the East Coast where he opened a surf shop and set out on creating a new clothing line “FTW”.
Bobby’s whole clothing line, and really his whole way of life, is about self- expression and doing what he wants. He purposely left the name of this clothing line in acronym form so that everyone would apply his or her own “FTW.” Examples he gave ranged from “For The Win” and “Fix The World” to other more vulgar expressions. The documentarians related stories where Bobby would show up late and high or turn the music up in hi store causing copious problems for them. Bobby’s whole world is about doing what he wants and expressing himself.
The lesson we can all take from Bobby Vaughn is to never give up on our self-expression. While not of all of us should get arrested or tattoo all parts of our bodies, the important part is that were all born with a certain set of skills and a certain amount of creativity, and we should never let anyone try to suppress it or tell us that it means nothing.
A box of matches with label by Ben Vautier, 1966.
If non-art is art, what is art?
This paradox was implicitly perpetuated throughout the entire Fluxus exhibit. Fluxus originated from the idea that “high” art, or conventional European ideas of what constituted art, was an elitist abstraction. In order to challenge the conventional notion of what was considered to be art, Fluxus artists created open-ended and often interactive pieces which aimed to provoke a similar engaged state of attention from its audience, as works in a conventional art gallery would receive from theirs. Fluxus artists seemingly wanted for their art to go “beyond the exhibit” and to encourage their audience to find art in everyday life. “Event scores” (short, ambiguous prompts which were designed to be acted out by anyone) are an example of Fluxus works which encouraged their audience to find art in everyday life, as they subtly dramatized seemingly simple actions by presenting it as “art”.
Fluxus artists challenged the very notion of “art” by creating pieces which were anti-art (ex. Total Art Matchbox, Vautier) and which were designed to be handled physically (ex. Flux boxes). Ironically, the Fluxus exhibit at the Grey Art Gallery institutionalizes and preserves the Fluxus works, transforming the works into the very ideal which its’ artists were against. It’s this irony which turns the entire gallery into a surreal, meta-exhibit; the gallery itself becoming a piece of art showcasing the paradoxical nature of art.
Despite being encased in glass enclosures in a university art gallery normally used to showcase what some would consider “high” culture, the exhibit pieces accomplish their purpose. They challenge their audiences to rethink the very concept of art and reexamine the world around them. The physical Fluxus works at the Grey Art Gallery may hardly be as impressive as elaborate Renaissance paintings found at the MET, but the simple idea that anything is art, even non-art proves to have just as powerful an effect on its audience.
