Artists have often seized on a single piece of the New York landscape as inspiration. Narrowly-focused art that has become famous includes Joseph Stella‘s views of the Brooklyn Bridge and Childe Hassam‘s paintings of flags.
We can José Guízar to the list of artists picturing New York through synecdoche. His “Windows of New York” project is showing us the architecture of the city through the small and endlessly repeated* details of windows and window surrounds. Some of the windows he’s chosen – 675 Ninth Avenue, for example, are styles that were heavily used and instantly feel familiar. Others, like 152 Spring Street, are unique expressions of a single building’s architectural design.
* Some fast math: A narrow two-story rowhouse has something like 8 windows; a normal-width three-and-a-half story rowhouse about 22; a six-story tenement 60 and up; and a medium-size skyscraper has hundreds. The city has a million buildings, so it doesn’t appear to be a stretch to say that there are probably over 50,000,000 windows around us.
You must be logged in to post a comment.