Yesterday was the first real day of winter in New York (or at least it was when I wrote this last weekend). I could hear the blasts of wind whistling through the cracks in my AC all day. Our radiator seems to ironically only work on hot days so the apartment was as cold as our fridge–even now as I type this bundled in thirty-seven layers of blankets and sweaters. Tomorrow will return to the high 40s which I’m thankful for. How cruel is it to be this cold with no snow days to show for it?!
On this first real winter day, I went to the Whitney for their pay-what-you-wish Fridays with my friend from work. My mom called me right before I left, neurotic about the fact that I was choosing to leave the apartment in this icy weather. Mothers have the ability to make you feel like everything around you is the most treacherous experience of your life. When I got off the train at 14th street, she was partially right. The buildings of the Meatpacking District suck up the wind from the Hudson river and feed it directly onto the streets, shaking me up and throwing me around storefronts of the high-end shops now in that area. I couldn’t wait to take refuge from the cold, surrounded by the equally cold solitude of Hopper’s subjects.
As we walked through the galleries, I mentioned to my friend that these look like New York but don’t feel like New York to me. We couldn’t put our fingers on why. So much of his work evoked solitude and reflection. Sun streaming through windows made angular moments of light. Women who looked like dancers with pigmented blush looked pensively to the side, out a window, always away from the viewer. We’re meant to feel like voyeurs into the lives of his subjects–a peek into a brownstone’s window, a view into a luncheonette.
It’s New York through an ordinary lens, regular street corners, and everyday people. One plaque mentioned that he removed the Brooklyn Bridge from the skyline because it was too much clutter in the composition. To Hopper, it was the every day that was a spectacle. He didn’t embellish or exaggerate the wonders of New York. He once said about New York that it is “the American city that I know best and like most.” I felt such a contrast between his work and other works of the city that highlighted the grand skyscrapers and the hustle and bustle. My brain usually goes to David Klein’s New York Fly TWA poster or, also at the Whitney, George Tooker’s The Subway when I think of NYC artworks. Meanwhile, Hopper highlighted the solitude within the rush.
This is probably why it didn’t feel like New York to me at first. Last night when I returned home, I thought about New York in Hopper’s view and if I ever imagined it in a similar way. The only time I could clearly see his vision is during those times in winter when the sun sets by 4 pm. The sunset is a mandarin orange reflecting off the glass skyscrapers and eaten by its shadows of the intricate architecture of pre-war buildings. It’s chilly and no one’s really on the streets. It’s that time when your curtains are still open even though it’s dark so all your neighbors can see you in the light of your room. We’re at the peak of this time in February.
Once we went around the whole Hopper gallery, we wondered where the iconic Nighthawks was. I overheard several people around me saying where’s that diner painting? A quick Google search told us it was currently being displayed at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. What does a New York painting have any business doing in Chicago? Beats me. What they did have were a few preliminary sketches of the painting. An older Asian man came up to us while we were looking at these sketches asking if the real painting was somewhere there. We had to disappointingly say no. He too was disappointed and told us a quick fact about how people tried to recreate the painting at the Flatiron building due to its similar sharp angle.
It’s crazy to think that so many of the works in the museum were based on buildings not too far away in and around the Village. I don’t think I allow myself to soak in the city the way I used to when it was still new and shiny to me in college. I used to get lost in the twists and turns of the Village clad in an inappropriately light jacket, buzzed off two hits of a joint I would secretly smoke in my dorm bathroom. Bob Dylan-core. I’d love to carve out time for a dérive sometime soon. Please keep exploring and seeing beauty in the mundane.
Until next time, love you!