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New York Times
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How a High Line Curator Keeps Up With Art in Multiple Cities
Since joining the High Line as the director and chief curator of High Line Art in 2011, Cecilia Alemani has steered the elevated park's public-art program, commissioning works and performances and helping to foster civic engagement along its 1.45 miles. But her reach extends beyond the wildly popular greenway. Alemani curated the exhibit 'Willem de Kooning: Endless Painting' at Gagosian's West 24th Street gallery, which is open through June 14. Moving past the New York City limits, she was the artistic director of the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, is curating the upcoming Site Santa Fe International and is working on a project for a new Paris institution slated to open in the fall of 2026. Alemani, 48, lives in the East Village with her husband, the New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni, and their 9-year-old son, Giacomo. These are edited excerpts from phone interviews over seven days in late April that took her from downtown Manhattan to Chicago and back. Wednesday: Hitting the Lower East Side After dropping off my son at school, I went to the gym, then spent the morning at home doing office work. In the late afternoon, I went out to galleries on the Lower East Side, including Participant Inc, Magenta Plains and Bridget Donahue. We ended up at Perrotin for an exhibition by the Colombian artist Iván Argote, who has a major piece on the High Line, this giant pigeon called 'Dinosaur.' His show at Perrotin brings together more kind of guerrilla actions in the public space, including videos of him repairing sidewalks or dressing up existing statues. Thursday: Art Marathon in Chicago I woke up very early to catch a plane and go to the art fair Expo Chicago, where I was invited to give a talk. I don't go to Chicago that often, so I went a day earlier to catch a million shows in a very short time. I started with the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, where they had an exhibition by a collective from Uganda called Wakaliga Uganda. They produce action movies on incredibly low budgets, like, $200. Then I walked across to the Neubauer Collegium, where there was an exhibition by Betye Saar. It showcased drawings and archival materials and dresses from the 1970s, when she worked as a costume designer. I then took a cab to the Arts Club of Chicago for a very nice show of a Lebanese artist called Huguette Caland, and after that I went to an exhibition by the filmmaker Arthur Jafa at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. I ended my exhibition day at the Art Institute of Chicago. There was a very lovely exhibition of Frida Kahlo's time in Paris in the late 1930s. It brought together art and also lots of archival materials, documents and photographs. Walking around, I stumbled upon probably de Kooning's masterpiece, a painting called 'Excavation' that brings together abstraction and figuration in a very innovative way. As I do all this, I basically spend half of my time on the phone, answering emails or text messages and trying to coordinate with my teams. I can never let go, unfortunately, of digital communication. But it's also the exciting part of my job, to actually produce things and see them realized. Friday: Talking Art I spent the morning and afternoon just doing emails and working from my hotel room. My job involves very immediate communications, but I also have to write a lot, and review essays and texts. Then I went to Expo. It was quite refreshing to see many great presentations from Chicago galleries but also international ones. We had our talk, which was myself, Myriam Ben Salah, the chief curator and director of the Renaissance Society, and Julieta González, the head of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio. We discussed the role of international curating — I'm Italian, Myriam is from Tunisia, and Julieta is from Venezuela, so thinking about what it means personally for us to work in America, but also what kind of perspective we can bring that is slightly different from other colleagues', or what are the main discrepancies or distinctions between curating in America and in the rest of the world. Afterward I went to the airport. Saturday: Artless, Almost The weekend is for time with our son, but unfortunately I had to do some work as well. Maurizio Cattelan, a dear friend, asked me to write a piece for the catalog of a show that he's doing in Portugal. Sunday: Wizardry on Broadway My son and I went to 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' on Broadway. It was refreshing to do something that was not a museum! He was eating all those weird Harry Potter jelly beans with flavors like vomit and booger. Since we were in Times Square, we visited my friends Marco Boggio Sella and Paololuca Barbieri Marchi, who are curating a show, 'R U Still Painting???,' in an abandoned office floor nearby. It's what I love about New York — you can see exhibitions in galleries and museums, but then there are always these pop-up shows, more grass-roots initiatives, often put together by artists. Monday: Pounding the High Line Pavement I had a very nice walk with Alvaro Barrington, whom we're going to show next year. We often show the High Line to artists by walking it and seeing how people interact. I checked on two major commissions, Mika Rottenberg and Tai Shani, we're installing at the High Line, then I went to Gagosian, where we had to do shots for the catalog. After that I went to the New Museum gala honoring the gallerist Paula Cooper, at Cipriani South Street. Tuesday: Inside Voices In the early afternoon I had a public conversation with Rosana Paulino, a Brazilian artist who made a beautiful mural on the High Line and also has a new show at Mendes Wood. Then I gave a tour of the de Kooning show for participants in the Hill Art Foundation's Teen Curators program. Hill Art is a nonprofit in Chelsea, so they are very much our neighbors. We often collaborate, and I often give them tours. The rest of the day is basically doing a million emails [laughs].
UPI
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- UPI
Pigeon Fest to celebrate New York's most controversial birds
The High Line elevated park in New York City announced it will host Pigeon Fest, a celebration of the city's most common birds, on June 14. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo May 22 (UPI) -- A New York park is celebrating one of the city's most iconic animals next month with Pigeon Fest, a day-long event featuring art exhibitions, science demonstrations and the city's first Pigeon Impersonation Pageant. The High Line, an elevated park on the West Side of Manhattan, announced Pigeon Fest will be held from noon to 8 p.m. June 14, coinciding with National Pigeon Appreciation Day. The park's website said the event is partially inspired by Dinosaur, artist Iván Argote's 17-foot-tall aluminum pigeon sculpture that resides at the park. Alan van Capelle, the park's executive director, told The New York Times that the festival will include "a pigeon impersonation pageant and a panel on urban ecology and bird conservation." The events also include a Zumba-style Pigeon Dance Party and a puppet show put on by Tina Piña Trachtenberg, aka Mother Pigeon, who is famous in New York for feeding the birds while dressed in a giant pigeon costume. "Love them or hate them, people are fascinated by our feathered friends," van Capelle told TimeOut New York. "This festival felt like a fitting way to celebrate New Yorkers' dynamic relationship with art, nature and, most specifically, pigeons."
Time Out
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
A pigeon festival may be coming to the High Line, complete with a "pigeon impersonation pageant"
New Yorkers are known for strutting their stuff, but on Saturday, June 14, it's the pigeons' turn. The High Line is hosting Pigeon Fest, an all-day celebration of NYC's most divisive bird in honor of National Pigeon Appreciation Day. From 12pm to 8pm, the elevated park's 30th Street section and Spur will transform into a feather-filled playground of art, science, dance and bird-themed hijinks—including what may be the city's first Pigeon Impersonation Pageant. Inspired by Iván Argote's Dinosaur — the giant 17-foot aluminum pigeon sculpture that currently looms above 10th Avenue—the festival will explore the complicated relationship New Yorkers have with their most common avian neighbor. 'Love them or hate them, people are fascinated by our feathered friends,' said Alan van Capelle, the High Line's executive director. 'This festival felt like a fitting way to celebrate New Yorkers' dynamic relationship with art, nature and, most specifically, pigeons.' Expect pigeon-themed carnival games, family-friendly art workshops, a hands-on Discovery Fair and appearances from more than a dozen urban ecology organizations. But the real showstopper is the 2pm pageant, where contestants will channel their inner city bird and be judged on costume ("plumage"), physicality ("strut") and vocal performance ("sound"). Hosted by NYC legend and costume designer Machine Dazzle, the pageant will also feature a special appearance by Argote himself. Before the pageant, attendees can warm up with a Zumba-style Pigeon Dance Party at noon or catch Mother Pigeon's Impeckable Puppet Show at 1pm—a delightful mix of animal rights activism and sing-along storytelling. Later in the day, there's a panel on building bird-friendly cities (3:30pm), a talk with Argote and High Line Art curator Cecilia Alemani (4:15pm), and a musical finale (5:30–8pm) presented in collaboration with the Birdsong Project. Whether you're a lifelong pigeon defender or someone who dodges them on your daily commute, Pigeon Fest promises a new perspective on the birds that have been part of NYC's ecosystem—and personality—for more than a century.
