Worlds, New York City

It’s common to walk around carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. What about on your feet? Would the world feel a little lighter?

In our current political realm of black is white and up is down, maybe the most appropriate response is to upend yourself. Artist Kathy Ruttenberg does that with her dreamlike sculpture of a woman on her head balancing a luminous globe in the Broadway median at 117th Street. That location is purposely centered between the gates of Barnard College and Columbia University, where I studied real news journalism. The cast silicon bronze, “Topsy-Turvy,” expresses the artist’s belief that pursuing knowledge can create a better world.

The fantastical sculpture is one of six from Kathy Ruttenberg on Broadway: in dreams awake, on the Broadway Mall medians from Lincoln Center at 64th Street to Washington Heights at 157th Street (until February, 2019). To see a video of all six, click here.

Pride, NYC

Whistles are a stop sign for the ears. Traffic cops, lifeguards and referees all use them to control the flow of action. But whistles have a happier side, too. A child with a whistle skips to a self-made joyful rhythm. Whistle-blowing can be fun, but it's not always easy. Sometimes it takes deeper convictions than lungs to blow a metaphorical whistle in corporations and government.

The annual NYC Pride March through Greenwich Village has always been a compelling mix of resistance, protest and celebration. The theme of this year's march (June 20, 2018), "Defiantly Different," protested the Trump and other world government administration's ongoing efforts to strip LGBTQIA protections and rights. Serious signs of protest joined bucketloads of glitter, confetti and rainbows on marchers and their floats. 

This large green team from TD Bank walked by tooting their own whistles and handing out free ones to onlookers. I grabbed one as did the people shoulder to shoulder with me. Individually, our tiny shrill exhales were impossible to hear. But all together, we made some damn serious noise. 

March For Our Lives, NYC

The protesters were young and their mood was serious at Manhattan's March For Our Lives on March 24, 2018. Among the estimated 175,000 demonstrators were many New York City students and teachers. Post-rally, it was hard to wind down. Many wore signs as they shopped, stopped for food, walked in the park or took public transport home. Three high school friends (above) walked up Sixth Avenue with a "Books Not Bullets" crown and stopped to snap a proud photo in front of Robert Indiana's iconic pop-art LOVE sculpture. After a day of sincere political action, they had a reminder that love was in the backdrop. Others left their signs in a temporary wall of dissent (below) against barricades where the crowd dispersed. Their fierce statement would remain for a few hours more, or at least until street sweepers arrived.

Arch, NYC

Public art is never static. People, traffic, birds, squirrels, weather and time of day all change things up. Take, for example,  Ai Weiwei's 37-foot-high steel cage in Washington Square Park (until February 11, 2018). By day, it was a total selfie magnet for tourists. At night, it ruled the park. Darkness transformed Weiwei's center silhouette (modeled after a 1937 gallery doorway by Marcel DuChamp) into a beckoning giant keyhole. Floodlights on the arch turned park walkers into miniature moving cut-outs. Perhaps the conjoined couple in the cage had just stepped out to explore the world around them? I wondered if they might snap back into place at dawn, like two missing puzzle pieces.

Gilded, NYC

New York City's public art performances are seldom singular. Passersby often jump in with their own twist, like this street mime in gold sequins and metallic face paint perched inside Ai Weiwei's giant Victorian birdcage structure near Trump Tower. With 300 outdoor sculptures installed across five boroughs from October to February, 2018, Weiwei's work— "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" —evoked the global refugee crisis and the divisive nature of borders and walls. The mime wouldn't say, of course, if he was going meta on Weiwei by impishly layering a migrant street performance on a public art performance about migrants. Or was it simply a great spot for tips? I had so many questions and he had so few answers. Just a signaled preference for peace.

Cheeky, NYC

Lately, everyone and everything seems to be getting louder. Yelling on cable news, ALL-CAPS on Twitter, amped-up music, you name it. My hunch was confirmed this week by this New Yorker piece by Amanda Petrusich. She notes in it that ubiquitous dynamic range compression is "the audio equivalent of writing in all capital letters," that "productive discourse has been reduced to simply securing the most deafening bullhorn," and even the ocean "is getting progressively less quiet." Noise pollution, like other kinds, is stuck on high.

One way to turn down the volume is to remember that whispering also commands attention. I've seen teachers quiet a noisy classroom by lowering, not raising, their voices. At the Women's March 2018 in New York City on January 20, the protester in the photo above stood out in a crowd with a cheek sign tinier than a button. Quirky and memorable, it proved you don't always have to shout to be heard.

Signed, New York

Design that speaks out can whisper or shout. I see more people wearing their values on their sleeve (or caps, jackets, sweatshirts and backpacks) with slogans and small buttons that promote love, equality and resistance. I also notice the proliferations of anti-hate posters and flags on the doors of independent stores, on sides of churches, and here, on the glass-front entrance wall of a Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. The sheer size and profundity of this sign, along with the invisible burden carried by a stooped passerby, left me speechless—but not for long.