The Brooklyn Rail

OCT 2020

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OCT 2020 Issue
The Miraculous The Miraculous: New York

25. (SoHo)

In a neighborhood that decades before was home to countless artists and galleries but has long since been dominated by pricey condos and showrooms for global luxury brands, worry over impending anti-racism protests convinces most businesses in the area, already reeling from a pandemic, to board up every inch of their storefronts with plywood. In an unanticipated response, street artists flock to the deserted streets and cover the plywood sheets with vibrant expressions of grief, anger and hope. Soon the neighborhood is once again filled with art, much of it anonymous or by artists who use invented names to protect themselves from legal consequences. Distinctly not anonymous, however, are the many victims of police violence whose names and faces cry out for justice amid the bland expanses of wood veneer.

(Optimo NYC, Lola Lovenotes, Matthew Mazur, Sule, Adam Fu, Duel RIS, Hektad, Fabio Esteban, et al.)

Contributor

Raphael Rubinstein

Raphael Rubinstein is the New York-based author of The Miraculous (Paper Monument, 2014) and A Geniza (Granary Books, 2015). Excerpts from his recently completed book Libraries of Sand about the Jewish-Egyptian writer Edmond Jabès have appeared in BombThe Fortnightly Review and 3:AM Magazine. In January 2023, Bloomsbury Academic will publish a collection of his writing titled Negative Work: The Turn to Provisionality in Contemporary Art. Since 2008 he has been Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Houston School of Art.

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The Brooklyn Rail

OCT 2020

All Issues