Poetry
Espalier in Autumn
Contributor
Paul BozkurtPaul Bozkurt was born on Manhattan Island in 1979, in St. Vincent?s Hospital (recent closed, as I?m sure you?re aware by now). Grew up on West 12th st. Attended what was then St. Bernard Elementary School on West 13th, and then Xavier High School on West 16th. A stint at Pace University before moving to Long Island with my parents for a few years, before returning to NYC. Chelsea, then the Upper East Side, where I now reside. Started writing seriously when I was left with no direction after leaving Pace. First poem emerged during first attempt at a novel inspired by a painting my father bought on a whim before he had me?his only son. The resemblance of it to me in early youth is uncanny. It was a good start.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s The Comeuppance Goes Where Only Fools Dare: The High School Reunion
By Paul David YoungJUNE 2023 | Theater
I have never felt the slightest inclination to go to a high school reunion, but apparently many people do in America, and thus a subgenre of film and theater has been created. The premise is that no matter how miserable high school was or how bad your relationships were, you will return to spend a few intoxicated hours with those special people from long ago. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s riff on this genre, The Comeuppance at Signature Theatre, showcases his ease with dialogue as he keeps the action going in a continuous gabfest, seamlessly and artfully directed by Eric Ting, at the pre-party leading up to the reunion.
Bernard Piffaretti with Raphael Rubinstein
JUNE 2022 | Art
In early May, French painter Bernard Piffaretti was in New York for the opening of his exhibition at Lisson Gallery in Chelsea. On the morning of the opening, Bernard and I sat down at the gallery to talk about his work. In preparing for our meeting, it struck me that even though I have known Bernard for a long time—we met in Paris around 1990 through Shirley Jaffe—I knew very little about his early years, so that’s where we began. The interview was conducted in French, which I have translated. A few brief written passages, also originally in French, were added later.
59. (Coney Island, 42nd Street, the Meatpacking District, among other locations)
By Raphael RubinsteinJUNE 2021 | The Miraculous
Deserted by his parents at a young age, subjected to abuse by his supposed caregivers, a New Jersey teenager finally has no option but to drop out of school and run away to New York City where he survives, barely and dangerously, as a street hustler. Now in his mid-20s and trying to make his way as an artist he embarks on a project that takes him back to many of the locations where he used to sell his body for sex: “the places I had hung out in as a kid,” he later explains, “the places I starved in or haunted.”
Works on Paper: 100 Years
By Alfred Mac AdamJULY/AUG 2023 | ArtSeen
My friends, come one, come all! The Amanita Gallery has brought the greatest show on earth to the Lower East Side! Fifty-nine works on paper by fifty-four artists: a glorious, international century. Whatever your favorite style may be, you’ll find it here in a dazzling panoply.
