5. Rapport: NYC

By Global Art Daily Editorial Board

^{Published on February 20, 2021}

︎ Rapport is a section dedicated to reflecting on a city’s current cultural scene. Written collaboratively by our Editorial Board, this section aims to take a snapshot of the city at the time of writing.

The arrival of the year 2020 was attended by an explosive proliferation of articles drawing parallels between the “roaring twenties,” an era of transformation and new beginnings, and telling signs about the supposed “zeitgeist” of the upcoming 2020s. While it is inevitable that some would take this moment to consider our particular position in the course of human history, one cannot help but suspect that this anxiety to establish a link between our ‘unprecedented times’ – a platitude which has been laughed out of the halls of Twitter – belies an emerging nostalgia for an anterior incarnation of modernity. As we advance along an axis with an unknown terminus, we move, in an non-linear progression past the ambiguous marker of post-modernity. It goes without saying that any project which aims to definitively establish a starting point for the enterprise of modernity will involve the pursuit and omission of certain lines of inquiry. Indeed, there appears to be too many starting points to choose from. Many of the developments which came to fruition in the 1920s including the Freudian revolution, the rise of Art Nouveau, and the spirit of irreverent revelry which reverberated from Prohibition-era New York to the fringes of the Tiergarten of Hirschfeld’s Berlin, speak more clearly to our contemporary senses than almost any other moment in history.

1. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Washington Arch, one of the outstanding achievements of the late Stanford White, New York City." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1925. 2. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Brooklyn suspension bridge, New York City." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1867 - 1910.

Many of the developments which came to fruition in the 1920s speak more clearly to our contemporary senses than almost any other moment in history.

The 1920s represented both a collapse and an era of renaissance, a fresh new world ready to be redefined. Following the end of World War I, world powers were beginning to shift to post-industrial societal structures which would define developments in the Western world for the rest of the century. In 2020, the collapse of the basic infrastructures which sustained the ‘modern world,’ a catastrophe that has reached apocalyptic proportions during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, offers an opportunity for retrospection into modernity. After all, it was in this context that the “internet,” the fledgling of the digital age was, without warning, kicked out of the comfort of its nest and was made to fly on its own – shouldering the burden of carrying the flame of human civilization as it teetered on the cusp of implosion.

The collapse of the basic infrastructures which sustained the ‘modern world’ offers an opportunity for retrospection into modernity.

Precarious as it seemed, digital culture survived the disintegration of the much-problematized notion of ‘real-life’ and soared to new heights, undergoing various paroxysms of its own. This ranged, of course, from the gloom of the ‘banana bread’ days to the crescendo of digital classrooms sublimating their isolated fragmentation through synchronized Tik Tok dances.

It is in this context that we turned to New York City in this E-Issue of Global Art Daily. In his now apotheosized Civilization and its Discontents, Freud invites us to take part in a mental exercise in order to better grasp the nature of the human psyche: by imagining the intact remains of Classical Rome superimposed upon the modern city with all its erstwhile features intact. Freud’s metaphor offers a practical tool for the interpretation of a city like New York, which, being to a large extent a product of the 1920s has the veneer of contemporaneity imposed upon it. Moreover, our experience of the city is already mediated through a tight web of cultural referents, which direct our ability to make sense of New York.

3. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "View from the Woolworth Tower looking West, New York City" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1930 - 1939.

Our experience of the city is already mediated through a tight web of cultural referents, which direct our ability to make sense of New York.

4.The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "View looking through Brooklyn tower toward New York." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1867 - 1910.5. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Ferry boat crossing East River." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1867 - 1910.

Like many other high-density urban areas in the Western world, Manhattan reached its peak population in the 1920s and has not recovered since. These demographic trends notwithstanding, New York City’s remaining boroughs have reached remarkable growth with Brooklyn alone constituting a population only marginally smaller than that of Chicago, owing in large part to the suburbanization and motorization of American cities.

The notions of Classicism and Renaissance, therefore, remain as relevant today as they have in the past because many of the world’s major cities are, in fact, artefacts of the Industrial Revolution. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and beholding the towering Woolworth and Empire State buildings, one cannot help but marvel at these vestiges of humans who appear to have been so ahead of their times. As one of our key contributors has aptly remarked, there is, enmeshed in the grid of the 1920’s skyscrapers, a 21st century phenomenon of so-called “pencil-towers” racing towards new heights, in a superimposition upon the Classical 1920’s vision of Manhattan. New York City, in particular, not only evokes a nostalgia for the past, but also a nostalgia for a range of ‘futures,’ popularized through the primarily American genre of science fiction. Unfortunately, we face today the sobering reality that these futures are now increasingly remote as we become aware of the toll that our existence has taken on the Earth.

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and beholding the towering Woolworth and Empire State buildings, one cannot help but marvel at these vestiges of humans who appear to have been so ahead of their times.

It is in this cautious atmosphere that GAD’s second E-Issue emerges, not as a didactic prognostic of a golden decade, but as a forum for the expression of various strands of a tentatively emerging ‘future.’ Amid the necessity for physical distancing in certain contexts, artists have had to adapt their practice to convey meaning in a world that is increasingly imbricated in and mediated through digital culture. We regard it as the vocation of this issue to accompany artists these developments and to document the culture which is emerging out of this period of hibernation. While this may not be the moment to make predictions about what the future will hold, one can nevertheless contemplate a range of ‘futures’ which have been projected onto the present by previous generations. Moreover, one must note that nostalgia and classicism are two sides of the same coin and it is in this sense that anterior modernities provide a blueprint for our understanding of modernities to come.

We regard it as the vocation of this issue to accompany artists these developments and to document the culture which is emerging out of this period of hibernation.

Anterior modernities provide a blueprint for our understanding of modernities to come.

10.The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Up Broadway from Bowling Green, New York, N. Y., U. S. A.." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1850 - 1930. [cropped] 11.The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "From Empire Building looking north on Broadway past Trinity Church, New York City." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1850 - 1930. [cropped]

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5. Rapport: NYC

Many of the developments which came to fruition in the 1920s speak more clearly to our contemporary senses than almost any other moment in history.

The collapse of the basic infrastructures which sustained the ‘modern world’ offers an opportunity for retrospection into modernity.

Our experience of the city is already mediated through a tight web of cultural referents, which direct our ability to make sense of New York.

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and beholding the towering Woolworth and Empire State buildings, one cannot help but marvel at these vestiges of humans who appear to have been so ahead of their times.

We regard it as the vocation of this issue to accompany artists these developments and to document the culture which is emerging out of this period of hibernation.

Anterior modernities provide a blueprint for our understanding of modernities to come.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Latest Issue:

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJSpring 2023

Chronological Archive ––

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB Summer 2020

E-01++ Fall/Winter 2020-21

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

E-Issue 02 –– NYC Spring 2021

E-02++ Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO Fall 2021

E-03++ Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST Spring 2022

E-04++ Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE Fall 2022

E-05++ Fall/Winter 2022-23

🔍 Legal

5. Rapport: NYC

Many of the developments which came to fruition in the 1920s speak more clearly to our contemporary senses than almost any other moment in history.

The collapse of the basic infrastructures which sustained the ‘modern world’ offers an opportunity for retrospection into modernity.

Our experience of the city is already mediated through a tight web of cultural referents, which direct our ability to make sense of New York.

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and beholding the towering Woolworth and Empire State buildings, one cannot help but marvel at these vestiges of humans who appear to have been so ahead of their times.

We regard it as the vocation of this issue to accompany artists these developments and to document the culture which is emerging out of this period of hibernation.

Anterior modernities provide a blueprint for our understanding of modernities to come.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23