Spied, New York City

The city streets used to be places where you could blend in and disappear. No longer. As a resident New Yorker, I hate to think of how many tourist selfies I’ve accidentally appeared in. I imagine little pieces of myself in phones all over the world. Somewhere, in some remote place, a returned tourist is undoubtedly giggling over my backside in leggings in one of their shots.

Between ubiquitous cell phones and street cameras, you are more likely to be tracked, recorded, photographed and broadcast while going about your daily business than ever before. According to the World Atlas, New York City is the fourth most surveilled city in the world after London, Beijing and Chicago. It’s making the streets safer, but in exchange for what exactly?

I took this photo of artist JR’s giant Peeping Tom pasted onto Galerie Perrotin’s brick facade this past summer just as a man walked by. It’s art about the act of looking: from the outside in, as a curious act, and as an intervention. Ironically, as I captured the image, I became a spy on the man walking by underneath. I was watching the guy watching his phone and capturing it for the Internet.

It’s a sign of the times that in Gary Shteyngart’s new comic novel, Lake Success (Random House, 2018), the troubled hedge funder Barry Cohen leaves New York via Greyhound bus to find anonymity. Trashing his phone and credit card to avoid his persistent high-octane assistant, he goes on the lam in search of the self he has lost. It seems it’s now easier to get lost on the highways of America than in the streets of New York.

Anonymity is a bubble that could instantly pop. Maybe, like Tom Hanks and Madonna, we all need to wear sunglasses and baseball caps outside. It’s nice to be unseen in broad daylight.

Lined Up, New York City

This is the largest line I've ever seen in my life. Literally. Made up of towering 25-foot-tall paper cutouts, it was pasted outside the popular art fair, The Armory Show (March 7-11), by the French artist JR in partnership with dealer Jeffrey Deitch and Artsy. JR's idea was to secretly photoshop contemporary faces of Syrian refugees onto historical photos of Ellis Island immigrants. The piece, "So Close," not only asks the question "Who is foreign?" by mingling historical and contemporary images but also slyly points out the privilege of waiting in line for upscale experiences like, say, an art fair, brunch, or a Cronut. Dualities were evident on the sidewalk below "So Close," too. As art lovers in mink and down coats lined up outside the show's entrance, a man in traditional Pakistani garb handed out Subway discount flyers to anyone who would take them. The day was bitter cold, and he shivered in his lightweight clothes.

JR, Aspen & NYC

When you're stuck on a problem—emotionally, creatively or otherwise—the best thing you can do is change your point of view. I learned this the hard way. Rock-climbing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, I got stuck on a ledge between steep cliff cracks.  I looked up both walls and there was no sure way up. But since I had people waiting to climb after me, I headed up again. A few moves in, I slipped and started to fall. The safety rope caught me and I was able to quickly grab a new section of the cliff face that got me right up. My simple change in perspective had done it. I learned that some times action is better than planning. Get going. You might stumble. But if you're lucky, that stumble or fall can open up results.

This happened today when I got stuck in terrible standstill traffic on a bus going up Madison Avenue. I could have gone into total road rage mode, but instead I just got off the bus. Walking west to my destination, I entered Central Park and passed a guitarist singing for change in the shade of a sandstone bridge. It was a beautiful late summer day and I began to love my unexpected park walk.

Leaving the park on its west side, I saw a gang roaring down Columbus Avenue  on noisy off-road motorcycles. They shattered my quiet and pissed me off. But then I saw a guy with glasses and a black hat on a small electric bike whip out his camera and shoot them as they rode by. It was the incredibly awesome French photographer and artist JR in action (or a damned close lookalike).  Seeing JR make art from a fleeting street moment totally made my day. Here's a photo I took of his 2015 installation at the Aspen Ideas Festival. It speaks to me about the inspirational nature of vision. Change your route and see what happens.