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Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Orien McNeill, artist/pirate prankster who made merry mischief on the water, dies at 45
Soon, a cohort of street artists and dumpster-diving freegans -- the anti-consumerist foragers of the late aughts -- who might otherwise have been squatting in Brooklyn warehouses, were drawn to the same lawless territory. It was a last frontier and haven in the ever-gentrifying New York City boroughs. They made art from scavenged materials and held events that harked back to the Happenings of their 1960s predecessors, although the events were intended for no audience but themselves. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up No critics were summoned, and not much was documented. Mr. McNeill was their pied piper, guru, and pirate prankster, who hatched extravagant, loosely organized adventures involving costumes, flotillas of handmade rafts, and, once, a pop-up bar on a sinking tugboat. Advertisement When Caledonia Curry, otherwise known as the artist Swoon, began to conceptualize 'Swimming Cities' -- winsome floating contraptions built from salvaged materials that she launched on the Hudson River in 2008 -- Mr. McNeill, her classmate from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, was an inspiration, project architect, and co-pilot. Advertisement 'Some of the funniest and proudest and most exciting moments were with Orien, just making things," said Duke Riley, a fellow traveler in art and antics. Duke Riley/NYT The following year, when she reimagined the project for Venice, Mr. McNeill played the same role. With a crew of nearly 30, Curry sent her materials to nearby Slovenia, where customs inspectors initially held up their shipping containers: They were confused by the contents -- they thought it was garbage. The crew members built their fantastical crafts in Slovenia and sailed to Venice, where they crashed the annual Biennale, enchanting the assembled art crowd as the vessels floated through the canals. Mr. McNeill served as the escort and advance guard, scooting about in a battered skiff in case someone fell overboard. 'Orien introduced me to world building,' Curry said in an interview. 'He was living this beautiful, feral existence on the water -- the center of this artist community. He shied away from the limelight, but his spirit informed everybody.' She added, 'With artists, there's always this thing about what's art and what's life, and nobody held that closer to the bone than Orien.' Duke Riley, an artist known for releasing thousands of pigeons outfitted with LEDs into the night sky above the Brooklyn Navy Yard, as well as building a wooden replica of a Revolutionary War-era sub and launching it at the Queen Mary 2, was a co-conspirator on a variety of adventures. One was the sinking bar, which Mr. McNeill persuaded Riley to help him build in a half-submerged tugboat with a rusted-out floor. The bar opened at low tide, and as the hours passed, guests eventually found themselves waist-deep in water. They swam out before the tide rose too high. Advertisement 'He never let personal safety get in the way of a genius idea,' Riley said. He added: 'Some of the funniest and proudest and most exciting moments were with Orien, just making things. . . . Maybe, in time, people will look back and realize what an important catalyst he was.' Mr. McNeill was irresistible, said Dan Glass, a fellow artist and frequent collaborator. He was like a combination of Auntie Mame and George Carlin -- or like a Martin Scorsese character but in a Wes Anderson movie, he added, noting Mr. McNeill's singular style. (Mr. McNeill favored blazers and jaunty feathered hats.) He made meals into performance art. He once served a roasted alligator to Riley in lieu of birthday cake (there were candles). Another event featured martinis made from Pepto Bismol and garnished with Band-Aids (surprisingly drinkable, by all accounts). He conceived an annual adventure he called 'The Battle for Mau Mau Island,' named for a lump of landfill circled by a creek near Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. Hundreds of intrepid people would organize themselves into themed gangs and set out in homemade crafts of dubious seaworthiness through Jamaica Bay to compete, 'American Gladiators'-style, with various props and pseudo-weapons. The 'boats' disintegrated once the shenanigans were over. For McNeill, the intent was to highlight the potential of the city's waterways 'as a frontier of temporary arts and theatrics,' he told Gothamist magazine in 2016, while pointing out the scarcity of free creative space on land. Mr. McNeill's most ambitious project was inspired by Curry's 'Swimming Cities.' He wanted to do the same thing, but bigger, and conceived a 500-mile trip along the Ganges River to Varanasi, the sacred city and pilgrimage site in northern India. He called it 'The Swimming Cities of the Ocean of Blood.' Advertisement Mr. McNeill and a group of collaborators built five metal pontoon boats in Brooklyn -- three of them powered by motorcycles, one by sail and oars, and another by paddle wheel -- which he would captain. The boats were designed to lock together for camping on the water. In 2010, they shipped the components to a small Indian university in the city of Farrukhabad, which had agreed to host them while the collaborators reassembled their crafts. Though they had spent two years raising money through events that Mr. McNeill orchestrated, they were still underfunded and under-provisioned. It was an arduous monthslong trip. Marauding monkeys attacked their camp. They often saw bodies floating in the river. At one point they encountered a quarter-mile-wide concrete dam -- a terrifying 'Class 5 rapid,' said Porter Fox, a participant who knew his waterfalls (he had been a white-water guide). Mr. McNeill tackled it first. Fox went next, his boat flipping end over end as it plummeted over the torrent. Clearly, it was not going to be possible for the rest of the boats, or their crews, to survive the dam. Mr. McNeill single-handedly disassembled the remaining boats on shore, somehow found a tractor for hire, and set off on land to bypass the dam. 'I remember seeing him coming over a rise, like Lawrence of Arabia, waving from the tractor,' Fox said. 'It was just so herculean. No one else could have sallied their spirit enough to think about getting out of this jam. Everyone just wanted to go home, and he's, like, 'No, we're not done.'' Advertisement Orien McNeill was born Dec. 7, 1979, in Manhattan, the only child of Van Cleve, a filmmaker, and Malcolm McNeill, an artist, author, and television director. His mother and father are his only immediate survivors. Mr. McNeill's godfather was author William S. Burroughs, with whom the elder McNeill had collaborated on a graphic novel. Burroughs baptized Orien with a dab of vodka from his afternoon drink. He also turned over the lease on his loft in Tribeca to the family. By age 10, Orien was drawing, painting, and sculpting 'as well as any mature artist,' Malcolm McNeill said. He taught his son how to use an airbrush at 12 and a vacuum forming machine, for molding plastic, at 13, because Orien wanted to build a spaceship. 'Otherwise, I got out of the way,' McNeill said. 'He could make anything.' After graduating with a degree in industrial design from Pratt in 2001, Mr. McNeill spent a year traveling, stopping in New Zealand, Borneo, India and Ireland. When he returned, he bought the Chris-Craft, parked it in the Gowanus Canal and began homesteading there. He later lived on a sailboat, which he reconfigured by cutting the mast off to make room for a massive deck -- the kind one might build for a house, cantilevered over the boat's bow -- so that he could host more people. 'He would do anything to create the ecosystem he wanted,' Fox said. For his 10th birthday, Orien had asked his parents to get him business cards. His father still has a few. 'Orien McNeill,' they read. 'All your dreams made real.' Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Milan's Triennale Museum Opens 24th International Exhibition Dedicated to Inequalities
MILAN — From cities to spaces and from bodies to lives, Triennale di Milano museum president Stefano Boeri stressed Monday that everyone is born unequal. The museum's 24th International Exhibition, which has taken place every three years since 1923, invited countries and artists, architects, researchers and designers around the world to showcase examples supporting the main theme. More from WWD Celebrity Fashion Matchmaker Lucio Di Rosa Is Coming to New York Boggi Milano Sets U.S. Retail Rollout, Starts With NYC Exploring Colony's Unique Design Gallery Model as Founder Embarks on Largest Group Show With contributions from 43 countries, the exhibition explores themes such as solutions to the housing crisis with 'Towards an Equal Future,' urban inequality with 'Cities' and the relationship between architecture and microbiology with an installation called 'We the Bacteria.' The exhibition path of 'Cities' opened here Monday with one of the most unforgettable examples of inequalities, the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in London in 2017, with an installation curated and narrated by Grenfell Next of Kin. It then unfolds across video, photos, models, installations and even patchwork quilts by the Grenfell Memorial Quilts community, with tributes to those who were killed. The installation highlights how 85 percent of the victims belonged to ethnic minorities. 'We speak to ghettos and wars: the most extreme manifestations of inequality so rigid and profoundly unjust that they become instruments of cruelty and even death,' Boeri said. On the first floor of the museum, an exhibit highlights the aging process. Curated by Nic Palmarini, director of the U.K. National Innovation Centre for Ageing, and Marco Sammicheli, director of the Italian design museum Museo del Design Italiano of Triennale Milano, 'The Republic of Longevity' emphasizes the need for systemic change, focusing specifically on the possibilities for an aging population. 'We have a longer life compared to our parents and grandparents…, but we have much more cases of cancer and diseases,' said Sammicheli, during a preview, pointing to books on longevity and a shelving system designed by late designer James Irvine. The shelves house mementos that tell the story of him and his widow, architect Marialaura Irvine, who continues his legacy and Studio Irvine. 'The Republic of Longevity' is divided into five key dimensions that promote healthy aging: eating and drinking healthily, sleeping well, staying active, keeping the mind engaged and supported by a purpose, and cultivating meaningful social connections. Elsewhere 'Tiamat,' created for the Design Doha biennial in Qatar, explored new ways of using stone in contemporary architecture, as evidenced by arches around the Middle East. The latest evolution of Stone Matters, a research project by Bethlehem-based Aau Anastas founded by Elias and Yousef Anastas, and which collaborates with Palestinian artisans, promotes responsible quarrying and resilient city-building in response to widespread destruction. Running through Nov. 9, the exhibition features 20 National Pavilions special projects by American artist and professor Theaster Gates, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina, the Norman Foster architectural foundation and Swiss curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist The last International Exhibition took place in 2022. The 23rd International Exhibition was titled 'Unknown Unknowns. An Introduction to Mysteries' and included a series of projects curated by astrophysicist Ersilia Vaudo and Burkinabè architect and 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Francis Kéré, among others. Best of WWD Celebrity Style at Coachella Through the Years: Taylor Swift, Amy Winehouse and More [PHOTOS] From John Galliano to Paul Smith, Designers Who've Created Christmas Trees at Claridge's The Most Over-the-top Hats From the Royal Ascot Races Through the Years
Time of India
04-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Musknagar: What a rocket city in Texas can teach Indian cities
Imagine a city built by a rocket company. Sounds like a sci-fi movie, right? Well, that's exactly what's happening in Texas, USA. A company called SpaceX, run by Elon Musk, has turned a small town into a space hub. They've even renamed it Musknagar (well, not officially, but people joke about it)! SpaceX builds and launches rockets there. They've built houses that all look the same and even put up a giant statue of Musk! Some local people are worried though — they feel the company is taking too much control of their town. Sometimes, nearby beaches and parks get closed for rocket launches, and that's frustrating for people who live there. But why does this matter for India? India has also had cities built by businesses. Long ago, big companies like Tata or Birla built towns around their factories. Places like Tatanagar and Modinagar were created this way. These were clean, organized, and had everything people needed — homes, schools, shops — all built with care. But in recent years, India's cities have become crowded, messy, and badly planned. Many projects to improve cities have failed because of lack of money, bad planning, or corruption. Even the big 'Smart Cities' project hasn't done much, and it's supposed to end soon. Today, Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru are struggling. There's not enough water, electricity, roads, or houses for the growing number of people. The people running the cities — usually the government — are not able to keep up. So, what can we learn? The idea is simple: let businesses help. If private companies work together with the government, cities can be built better and faster. It's not just about one rich city like Gurgaon or a failed private project like Lavasa — it's about using business-style planning, honesty, and speed to fix our cities. In the end, building a great city is like building a rocket — it takes imagination, teamwork, and a solid plan. Maybe India's cities need a little more of the rocket spirit. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
