Raise a glass I to ARCHITECTURE

Has the B/W Paean to architecture in Woody Allen's Manhattan been bankrupted from its denizens' collective memory banks over the years? Are people still wont to get curious about what's in their peripheral vision? New York artist Paul Ramírez Jonas (collaborating with nonprofit group Creative Time and the Mayor's office) believes that they have indeed remained human and is handing out mystery keys in Times Square - Key to the City- that will unlock 20 hidden nooks and crannies throughout the city's five boroughs. Line up, place your passport details into the white ledgers and away you go.
Some of the 30 or more volunteers for Key to the City^^^>>>

But if one wants their curious nature kept a secret perhaps purchasing the now iconic AIA Guide to New York City is the rune for summer rambling. First published in 1968 by architects Norval White and Elliot Willensky (revised editions in 1978 and 1988), until last week the most recent edition was published in 2000. There are now 2000 new photos and 300 new maps snapped and abetted by students from the Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College.

An exhibition at The Center for Architecture shows ten projects, one from each of the last ten years. HERE can be found footage of the exhibition opening with personal tributes to the authors.

Perhaps one could also 'prime' oneself for architectural adventures by popping in around the corner from MoMA PS1 where the gallery Dean Project presents its annual invited curator exhibition: this year Jack in the Space by Heng-Gil Han of the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (organized by the AHL foundation, and hosted by the Dean Project.) His show asks us to reconsider our physical and mental relationship to the art work before us. Are the traditional boundaries of space and time nothing more than a so-called received wisdom? Video artist Kyung Woo Han creates a 'walk-in Mondrian' while Lishan Chang's project LC Bakery ushers in the gallery visitor with burnt baguettes.

Interview with the show's curator below on the JUNE 2 post.

PS 122's lower East Side gallery space (that's to close this summer for a few years while a glass structure arises in the building's courtyard) has a complementary show that includes the work of photographer Wayne Liu.

Inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Liu's

the meandering scar-news from nowhere is an invisible Chinese city made to "oscillate in between the here and the elsewhere of my imaginary".

Medrie MacPhee's (her 7th solo NYC show) new oil paintings at Von Lintel Gallery seem deceptively melo-dramatic in their architectural collisions. Yet within floats an entire inner world of calm, humor and solace inching beneath the collar of the canvas. But perhaps the road to nirvana is often not the one well travelled as Darren Almond shows in his video installation at Matthew Marks that follows a Tendal monk as he engages with the Buddhist practice of Kaihogyo. It asks for at least 15 minutes of one's busy New York time. And rewards it.

And will waterside NYC in 70 years look like the models of MoMA's Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront? It's not so much that this architecture exhibition differs radically from others in the field more that the ideas are so visceral and visionary-as if thrown up by the earth itself rather than ourselves. Within the next generation an oil refinery in Bayonne, N.J. is likely to be submerged by the rising tides. Young architects have created an artificial reef of crystalline-like 'jacks' that would be lowered from boats, and the greater theory behind the project is fascinating.

If re-invigorating figurative sculpture is your thing then Lower Manhattan's City Hall Park has six younger artists showing in Statuesque, the first project curated by the Public Art Fund's new Director and Chief Curator Nicholas BaumeIf. And the Great Small Works 9th International Toy Theater Festival drew to a close this weekend in Dumbo. This year for the first time there was an opening parade and an impromptu performance. And as this New York Times article conveys, though light in heart, many of the festival performances were also heavy in soul exploring social and political issues. Footage of the opening parade and guests below on the JUNE 2 post and photos HERE.