New art gallery on 29th & 11th has grand opening on Thursday, October 1

A new art gallery called AINA is grandly opening on 29th Street & 11th Avenue (southeast corner, same address as a condo building) on October 1st! Neighbor Conor, who himself is opening a gallery in the Zebra Building this fall, informs us about the new gallery, previously called AICON and which resided for 20 years on something called “Great Jones Street” (for the civilized among us, Great Jones Street is East 3rd Street down by Bowery). The gallery focuses on modern art from South Asia, the Middle East, Africa. You can see the website here, a NYT write-up on the dapper architect for the new space here, and a description below:

Derived from the Persian and South Asian word for “mirror”, the new name articulates a larger ambition: to create a New York platform through which South Asian, African, Middle Eastern and diasporic modern and contemporary art can be viewed not as peripheral to the global art conversation, but as part of its centre.

[…]

Founder Prajit Dutta describes it as “a space of clarity and synthesis”.

The mirror embedded within the name becomes both metaphor and proposition.

A mirror reflects, but it can also change the way something is seen.

For AINA, that idea translates into a gallery built around reflection, exchange and global artistic dialogue, particularly for practices that have historically existed outside the dominant Western narratives of modern and contemporary art.

Welcome, Prajit, to the art gallery mecca of NYC. See you next week.

Ever-changing street art on 22nd Street between 10th & 11th Aves

Jason, your neighbor on the lower west side of Chelsea, writes in with a suggestion that we visit the Comme des Garçons storefront on 22nd Street between 10th & 11th Avenues to see the constantly changing graffiti. We took the suggestion and performed a longitudinal study this last week, meaning we visited on a Sunday and a Friday, and over that very short period of time, watched the art change over from the racoon you see here to the comic book-style couple saying nothing to each other that you also see here.

We’re very into the evolving and beautiful, city, gritty nature that this whole things brings to the neighborhood and have added it to our regular walk; thanks Jason. A‍ bit more detail for you on the store and the front: Comme des Garçons (which means “like boys” in French) is a streetwear Japanese fashion house that is cooler than you; you can see some silhouettes here. The storefront has been a canvas for graffiti artists dating back to at least 2008; you can see others posting about it over the years here and here‍. This does not appear to be one person’s doing; it’s a true street art collective making the brick storefront their canvas. Let us know if you have more info on who’s behind it; we’ll try to catch them in the act over the next few months.

Chain Film Festival, showing short indie films, running from August 6-16

Neighbor Inge, one of those people whose taste you should just trust, writes in with a suggestion that we check out Chain Film Festival. This is a small, independent film festival focusing on “personal stories and original ideas set against New York City itself.” It runs from August 6 - 16, 2026, and most of the shows run from 10 - 30 minutes. You can see the film schedule here.

When it comes to films, first and foremost we love a New York City backdrop, and you can see for yourself just by watching trailers of a few pieces on your phone that this festival goes hard in that respect. Films, we think, are kind of fun to attend with a partner but really fun to go to alone. Drink all of your senses in better that way and in the silence right after the show, hit the stranger next to you with a “so what’d you think?” Take it from us; take it from there.

Vote on the new art piece overlooking 10th Avenue on 30th Street

The public comment period is currently open on what the High Line Plinth will be in 2029 and 2030, which is that massive art piece overlooking 10th Avenue on 30th Street. It is currently a buddha (previously it was a pigeon and predator drone), and next, it will one of the 62 proposals on this page (you can also scroll on IG through some but not all of the proposals here).

There is quite the selection on here, including what I’ll refer to as a gingerbread bear, a pregnant mother earth, a kind of terrifying Scream-like bust, a slouching lamp-post, and the divided face you see here. We would never try to sway anyone’s voting around here, but we will try to incept, and so we’ll say only that nothing is more beautiful and slightly terrifying than the city at night and the duality of man. And if we’re not going for beautiful and slightly terrifying, what are we really doing here?

Comment by clicking on one of the 62 proposals and leaving a note in the message box, along with your name and email. You can also just leave a comment below and we’ll make sure it gets to the right people at the High Line. This fall, the High Line will select, based in part on the public comments, a shortlist. Then the shortlisted artists will present “maquettes” (little versions) in a public exhibition. We’ll of course tell you when that public exhibition is happening!

It’s not a dress; it’s a different sky

Our eyes caught on this vibrant mural on 18th Street and 10th Avenue, which debuted a few weeks ago and is perched right above a High Line staircase. Called “Time for a New Sky II,” this isn’t quite what you thought at first glance, if what you thought is that it shows a human in a yellow bellowing dress set up against a vibrant summer sky.

Rather it shows an individual trying, in vain or not, to pull an artificial almost dusk-toned sky over the natural one behind him. From the High Line’s description:

In Time for a New Sky II, a solitary figure stands atop a painted scenic sky backdrop, attempting to pull this artificial scene over the actual sky above him, as if ushering in the dusk. Reflecting Mitchell’s ongoing interest in bodily suspension and one’s relationship to the sky, this dreamlike work captures a tension between the natural and the constructed, mirroring the High Line’s own identity as an invented landscape suspended above the city. With the monumental New York skyline visible behind it, Time for a New Sky II is, ultimately, a work about self-possession and possibility: the whole sky gathered in one figure’s hands.

The artist is Brooklyn resident Tyler Mitchell. It will be in our neighborhood through this September (summer always goes so fast…).

Be the zebra (building), soft opening on 29th Street this fall

In a world full of horses, be the zebra. Painting recently finished on the facade of The Zebra Building, an art gallery and event space on 29th Street between 10th & 11th Avenues that is slated to soft open in October. The outside design is based on “the anatomically accurate pattern of “an individual Grévy’s zebra, an endangered species native to East Africa with fewer than 3,000 remaining in the wild.” We’ve reached out to the building’s owner, named Conor, and will give the block updates as we have them.

Really love that the art galleries which mark the area a few streets below us are coming up further north.

Hudson Yards showing Tribeca Film Festival greats June 3 - June 14 (plus the filmmakers are interviewed after the showings!)

The big screen at Hudson Yards is putting on some great movies/shorts through June 14, described as “landmark premieres, audience favorites, and breakthrough discoveries that have defined Tribeca.”

The Yanomami Struggle art exhibition showing at the shed through April 16.

The Yanomami Struggle is showing at The Shed through April 16. The NYT has written about it. The Yanomami People a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in villages in the Amazon rainforest, and Claudia Andujar is a renowned photographer. The exhibition shows Andujar’s photographs of the Yanomami and native Yanomami art pieces collected by Andujar over five decades.

The purpose is to show a vision of Yanomami culture, society, and visual art. It looks like tickets are $10 and include a tour.

Jim Kempner Fine Art (northwest corner of 23rd & 10th)

I find myself stopping into the gallery on the northwest corner of 23rd and 10th relatively frequently, which is called Jim Kempner Fine Art.

Currently on display are some homages to NYC, which I’ll always appreciate. I put on the home page a colorful, arts-and-craftsy, geographically correct rendering of NYC, and in the montage above you’ll see the crowded version of NYC that brought me to the city in the first place and that I hope we’ll get back to shortly.

Also on display is a compilation of all of the pieces of advice that I’m quite positive have never made anyone feel better about anything. Buy this piece if your friends frequently ask you for advice but you find yourself not really listening to the backstory and you now realize you need to fill the silence. I probably would have thrown in “calm down” as well.

Shout out to this lady (overlooking 10th Avenue from 30th Street).

She’s called “Brick House,” and she’s looking over the eastern side of this block association from a high perch on 30th Street.

The artist is Simone Leigh, who lives in Brooklyn. The sculpture was first unveiled on the High Line in June 2019, and interestingly, she has a sister—a copy was installed at the main entrance of the University of Pennsylvania in November 2020.

I remember looking up at this for the first time and thinking that it made for a striking contrast against the skyscrapers behind it. That in fact was the artist’s point: “What better place to put a Black female figure? Not in defiance of the space, exactly, but to have a different idea of beauty there.”