Museum of the City of New York shares love letter to NYC with new photography exhibit

Celebrating the City, a new photography exhibition featuring a selection of over 100 images telling the varied stories of New York City, opens on Feb. 18 at the Museum of the City of New York .

The images will range from documentary to quirky and architectural to atmospheric. Among the many talented photographers, the event will showcase Helen Levitt’s dynamic street photography, Sylvia Plachy’s eccentric examination of people and animals of NYC and Michael Spano’s slice-of-life city shots spanning the 1990s and 2000s.

Celebrating the City is organized into ten categories, each featuring mundane acts such as working or shopping, illustrating the universality of NYC. Exhibition highlights include Bruce Cratsley’s “Brooklyn Bridge Centennial,” Ken Heyman’s “Dogs’ Last Swim in Central Park Lake, New York,” Inge Morath’s “A Llama in Times Square” and many more.

“In addition to offering glimpses of life in the city, ‘Celebrating the City’ juxtaposes various picture-making approaches, showing the different ways in which photographs are created as well as illuminating the decision-making process behind photography, collecting, and curation,” said Sean Corcoran, senior curator of prints and photographs, Museum of the City of New York.

This exhibition will specifically present images recently gifted to the Museum by the Joy of Giving Something . JGS is a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the photographic arts. This organization has supported numerous emerging artists through awards, acquisitions and book projects. Currently, JGS focuses on expanding access to visual arts education and supporting artists in photography and related media via scholarships and grants to museums, schools and community-based organizations.

“JGS is extremely pleased to donate a substantial group of prints from our collection to the Museum of the City of New York. Most of the work in our donation features New York as subject and it is a great match that the photographs stay in New York to be enjoyed by audiences far and wide,” says Jeffrey Hoone, President of JGS. “New York continues to be a subject for photographic artists from around the world and JGS is proud to help continue that legacy as we support younger artists through our many different programs. We applaud the Museum for their forward-thinking programs and their commitment to preserving and celebrating New York as a vibrant subject for photographers past, present, and future.”

Another event to look forward to is “Return Sale,” an in-person exhibition featuring work that documents the entwined relationship between real estate and retail in Lower Manhattan. Open Feb. 19 to April 3 at the Abrons Arts Center , this event examines the defunct, destroyed and rebuilt malls and department stores to trace the “mall-ification” of Lower Manhattan parallel to cycles of crisis in NYC. The exhibit will present artworks by Christian Hincapié, Emily Jacir and Rose Salane.

The Wythe Hotel also plans to bring back the annual gathering of “On Air Fest” from Feb. 25-26. This event focuses on the exploration of storytelling and creativity in sound and will feature sneak previews, intimate conversations, exclusive performances and more. Dubbed the “Sundance of Audio,” this event will feature appearances from Chuck D, Dr. Jane Goodall, The Moth and SPAM.