The latest iteration of the *Greater New York* survey at MoMA PS1 functions as a cartography of the city’s current psyche. Spanning three floors of a repurposed public school, the exhibition moves beyond abstract prestige to capture what might be called the city’s lived texture. It is a collection that finds resonance in the mundane and the gritty: the makeshift mittens of e-bike delivery drivers, the vertical geometry of steam radiator poles, and the ubiquitous presence of the city’s resilient rodent population.
This focus on the granular reality of urban life extends to the figures moving through the city’s halls of power. Rama Duwaji, the First Lady of New York City, is currently navigating a narrative that transcends the tabloid-driven scrutiny of her teenage social media presence. In recent conversations, Duwaji emerges as an artist whose work and perspective are deeply integrated into the city’s creative fabric, offering a counterpoint to the often-flattened public image of political figures.
On the other side of the city’s chronological and geographic spectrum sits Joan Semmel. A nonagenarian fixture of the Spring Street art scene, Semmel’s provocative and strange portraits—currently on view at the Jewish Museum and Alexander Gray Associates—provide a necessary bridge between New York’s historical avant-garde and its contemporary anxieties. Her work remains a testament to the enduring power of the artist’s gaze in a city that is constantly, and often chaotically, reinventing itself.
With reporting from Hyperallergic.
Source · Hyperallergic
