Photo Pest: Spring Trauma

It took me a day or two after returning from the Folly to realize why 47 Pianos seemed even sunnier than I recalled. The enormous old tree that had shaded my living room for the past four decades had been cut down. Bummer!

The gorgeous eastern redbud tree around the corner took some of the sting out of that arboreal trauma.

I don't remember ever seeing so many eastern redbud trees, but they certainly do brighten up Central Park.

Not that there's a big need for that.

Look how the cherry tree trunks frame the fountain in the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

The protests at Columbia against the war Israel is waging against Hamas in Gaza injected a little modest trauma into my own life. Initially, my gym ID provided me with access to the closed campus. This photo and video were taken after Columbia cleared the first tent encampments.

A few days later, the protesters had settled in again.

It took a week for Jewish students to symbolically demonstrate their support for Israel.

Elsewhere on campus, student life continued as usual. Of course that all changed when Columbia enlisted NYPD to clear the tent encampments, a development that had this alumnus, Class of '75, shaking his head in bewilderment. Since the demonstrations against the war in Viet Nam--during which I witnessed cops on horseback bludgeoning students with billy clubs--Columbia and cops have gotten along as well as . . . Israel and Hamas. Worse yet, alumni, including those with gym memberships, were barred from campus for nearly a month, ostensibly because of outside agitation. It made me want to organize a protest of my own: "Let my people swim!" Meanwhile, Columbia's glorious university-wide graduation ceremonies were cancelled for the Class of '24 (who also lost their high school graduations to covid, poor kids) and the situation in Gaza remains unresolved, as does the war in Ukraine.

As usual, long walks and museum visits took my mind off the awful state of the world although Si Lewen's devastatingly relevant "The Parade" only re-enforced my disgust for nationalism and warmongering in general.

Who knew that antique Caddies came in Tiffany blue?

The PC aspect of the Whitney Biennial left me colder than usual but I enjoyed the broken-door effect on art appreciation.

NADA, which has moved from Staten Island to Chelsea, introduces artists from all over the world.

"Where Birds Don't Cry" by Jongwan Jang (2024)

Few artists have ever integrated colorful depictions of sports and culture as well as Ernie Barnes who finally seems to earning the accolades he deserves.

"Homecoming" (1994)

A fiftieth anniversary exhibition finally introduced me to the International Center of Photography's downtown location.

The visit also introduced me to the work of David Seidner, another casualty of the AIDS pandemic, at a serendipitous time. I'd recently watched The New Look on Apple TV in which Christian Dior and other designers revitalize the French fashion industry after World War II in part by designing haute couture for a traveling exhibition of wire dolls with plastic heads. When the dolls were resurrected in 1990, Seidner photographed them in real Parisian locations.

Not shy about his talent, he included himself in this grid of artists' portraits, in the lower right hand corner.

Here's what Seidner told the New York Times Magazine about his final photographic obsession, not long before he died in 1999 at age 42: "[Orchids] represent the idea that adversity can be a great motivator-they can adapt to anything. They're survivors, and they're beautiful survivors."