Whitman in New York
2024
Whitman in New York
April 2024
Acrylic on Stretched Canvas
48” x 36”
The top left of the painting shows a portrait of Franco Garcia Lorca, a poet and playwright heavily influenced by Walt Whitman, who wrote extensively about New York City during his year there, living in Morningside Heights, a neighborhood defined mainly by Columbia University’s presence there. He wrote extensively about Harlem during his time there, almost exploitatively considering how he didn’t live there and came from a privileged ethnic background, something that certainly didn’t define Harlem residents in the 1920s and 1930s. Later, the divide between Morningside Heights and Harlem grew so distinct that it is widely regarded that one avenue (Morningside Avenue) marks the end of one neighborhood and the start of the other, but it was something even Lorca could detect. In Lorca’s poem The King of Harlem, he references this, claiming that “To find a negro at ease/ A bridge must be crossed so that the musk of his breath as pine strike the temple,” likely referring to Morningside Avenue as this bridge, as black people were much more accepted in Harlem than they were (and still are) in Morningside Heights Since the 1980s and 1990s there has been intensive gentrification of this part of Harlem, but even since the 1930s, the neighborhood has been underfunded. Therefore, I’ve tried to express him primarily on the side of Morningside Heights, looking at Harlem with an interested gaze. Additionally, the denotation of 125th St references the eponymous subway station famous for many horrific acts of racially-motivated police brutality, including the 1968 murder of 33-year-old poet Henry Dumas.
The bottom left of the painting depicts a New York City subway bench with a plaque dedicating it to Langston Hughes. Even though this design of subway bench was introduced in the 1970s, the bench has become ubiquitous and iconic as a representation of the NYC subway system. The bench design has been highly controversial due to the spacers separating passengers and the removal of the backrest, an obvious example of hostile architecture– public infrastructure purposefully designed against people experiencing homelessness. The dedication to Langston Hughes on the bench serves as a form of satire, referencing Hughes’ poem Park Bench, in which he juxtaposes the lives of the wealthy Park Avenue residents to that of the homeless, who live on park benches. Since Hughes was highly critical of the ultra-wealthy and in favor of increasing the rights of people experiencing homelessness (in fact, heavily inspired by Walt Whitman in his arguably communist preaching of collectivism), he likely would’ve been opposed to hostile architecture and against this bench being dedicated in his name. Furthermore, a subway bench, seen only by lower classes who have to take public transport, is rarely dedicated to someone since the practice is typically done by the wealthy. As such, the dedication of the hostile subway bench to Langston Hughes is overtly obtuse, undermining Hughes’ message, as New York City proved to with time.
In addition, the center of the painting guides to a depiction of Park Avenue, again referencing Hughes’ poem and highlighting how there aren’t any benches. At the end of the avenue stands the MetLife building (formerly the PanAm building), which hovers atop the Baroque Grand Central Station and is essentially a symbol of capitalist dominance. The tree in the middle of Park Avenue highlights the debatably “park” nature of the avenue while referencing Whitman in its exaggerated scale. The mannerisms used to paint the skyscrapers of Park Avenue additionally reference Garcia Lorca’s drawings of New York.
On the left of the piece is a silhouette of Walt Whitman’s profile, with his beard pointing outward toward the rest of the painting, where future generations are depicted. Furthermore, there are butterflies in his beard, which refers to Lorca’s Ode to Walt Whitman. Below him is the Brooklyn Bridge and Ferry, referencing Whitman’s hopeful poem Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, in which he talks about a future of New York that follows his ideals of collectivism. While writers including Lorca and Hughes resonated with that message, their attitudes had significant flaws and drawbacks, and they didn’t fully agree if that ideal picture of the city is or would ever exist. Even today, as much as the city has radically advanced, many of the issues Hughes and Lorca observed still exist in certain ways, and they’re issues that I’ve lived with my whole life as a native New Yorker. Yet, Whitman’s (perhaps obtuse) belief that both past and future generations have just as much of a love for the city and desire for it (and themselves) to improve and flourish as we are capable of in the present moment, not only has (at least somewhat) proven true, but stands as an encouraging message that is resonant to me and many, many others.
The bottom left of the painting depicts a New York City subway bench with a plaque dedicating it to Langston Hughes. Even though this design of subway bench was introduced in the 1970s, the bench has become ubiquitous and iconic as a representation of the NYC subway system. The bench design has been highly controversial due to the spacers separating passengers and the removal of the backrest, an obvious example of hostile architecture– public infrastructure purposefully designed against people experiencing homelessness. The dedication to Langston Hughes on the bench serves as a form of satire, referencing Hughes’ poem Park Bench, in which he juxtaposes the lives of the wealthy Park Avenue residents to that of the homeless, who live on park benches. Since Hughes was highly critical of the ultra-wealthy and in favor of increasing the rights of people experiencing homelessness (in fact, heavily inspired by Walt Whitman in his arguably communist preaching of collectivism), he likely would’ve been opposed to hostile architecture and against this bench being dedicated in his name. Furthermore, a subway bench, seen only by lower classes who have to take public transport, is rarely dedicated to someone since the practice is typically done by the wealthy. As such, the dedication of the hostile subway bench to Langston Hughes is overtly obtuse, undermining Hughes’ message, as New York City proved to with time.
In addition, the center of the painting guides to a depiction of Park Avenue, again referencing Hughes’ poem and highlighting how there aren’t any benches. At the end of the avenue stands the MetLife building (formerly the PanAm building), which hovers atop the Baroque Grand Central Station and is essentially a symbol of capitalist dominance. The tree in the middle of Park Avenue highlights the debatably “park” nature of the avenue while referencing Whitman in its exaggerated scale. The mannerisms used to paint the skyscrapers of Park Avenue additionally reference Garcia Lorca’s drawings of New York.
On the left of the piece is a silhouette of Walt Whitman’s profile, with his beard pointing outward toward the rest of the painting, where future generations are depicted. Furthermore, there are butterflies in his beard, which refers to Lorca’s Ode to Walt Whitman. Below him is the Brooklyn Bridge and Ferry, referencing Whitman’s hopeful poem Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, in which he talks about a future of New York that follows his ideals of collectivism. While writers including Lorca and Hughes resonated with that message, their attitudes had significant flaws and drawbacks, and they didn’t fully agree if that ideal picture of the city is or would ever exist. Even today, as much as the city has radically advanced, many of the issues Hughes and Lorca observed still exist in certain ways, and they’re issues that I’ve lived with my whole life as a native New Yorker. Yet, Whitman’s (perhaps obtuse) belief that both past and future generations have just as much of a love for the city and desire for it (and themselves) to improve and flourish as we are capable of in the present moment, not only has (at least somewhat) proven true, but stands as an encouraging message that is resonant to me and many, many others.