The Top 5 Titles of 2020
By: As
Tags: City Living, New York City, New York, Syria, Architecture

The overwhelming emptiness that enveloped the streets of New York City appear in a series of new drawings by Ethan Shoshan. Collated into a tome titled Signs, Shoshan began portraying the overnight changes that began in March with the statewide lockdown, followed by protests and the destruction of private and public property. Signs presents the before-and-after effects, showing abandoned storefronts that are offset by silhouettes of grease and grime. The refinement of architectural details — damaged or not — reveals a city that was instantly eroded from desertion and disease. Shoshan’s drawings come to life with quips of texts such as:

“How are you, really?”

“Become Your Dream”

“The cultivation of Hope is an important struggle especially because there are so many good reasons to lose Hope.”

“True Value”

On each page of Signs, the artist’s refined architectural renderings appear to sway over the paper’s desolate surface. Figures remain absent from this figurative genre. From March to July, Ethan Shoshan drew what he saw. Divided into five parts, over 150 representations of New York City’s streets, facades, street gratings, sidewalks and ghostly trucks take one on a journey throughout the Lower East Side, the waterfront of Brooklyn, and beyond.

Brian Shevlin and the Con Artist Collective, Five Years: Inside a New York City Lower East Side Art Collective (2020). ACNY, First Edition of 200.

The late and legendary Con Artist Collective lives on in a book-like zine that is packed full of photographs, essays and documentation as a means to remember every exhibition that took place in the gallery of Con Artist located primarily at 119 Ludlow Street. However it wasn’t always that way.

Initially the collective started out in a basement space before moving to a larger space on Suffolk Street. Within 8 months, Con Artist was back at 119 Ludlow where it expanded. Like many other ephemeral moments, this 250-plus page publication is for the ‘books. An introductory essay by Brian Shevlin kicks off pages of shows and parties that gave Ludlow its down-to-earth street flair.

And yet Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt take a very in-depth look at all of the small particulars that literally make an urban center. Their book titled The 99% Invisible City evolved from their podcast titled The 99% Invisible that began in 2010. “This is about breaking down the cityscape into its more fascinating subparts. Rather than tell you about the first traffic light, we’d rather tell you about the most interesting traffic light in the world.”

Just short of 400 pages, this book consists of six chapters that discuss cross-cultural themes such as identity, camouflage, safety and signage. By transcending the pitfalls of interrelations and pop culture, Mars and Kohlstedt present a renewed focus on structure, replete with architectural renderings and no photographs.

In this first edition facsimile published by Aperture and Fundación ICO, Danny Lyon takes viewers back to Lower Manhattan in 1967 when the tenements and factories were demolished to make way for the skyline that defines New York City today. Throughout this slender volume, The Destruction of Lower Manhattan roams from Beekman Place to the Brooklyn Bridge; from Chambers to Duane and Reade Streets. While looking back on the beginning of these late 20th-century urban developments, it is clear that pre-pandemic New York City carried not one, but many different guises.

The city becomes a deeply personal metaphor in Christine Gedeon’s Aleppo: Deconstruction | Reconstruction (Kerber Verlag, 2020) presenting an array of family photographs and paintings with embroideries that attempt to reconcile her perception of Syria before and after the civil war. Gedeon’s introduction details how the turbulent changes have effected her life beginning with her family’s move to the United States in 1976, followed by her uncle’s mysterious abduction in 1978. Abstract representations deconstruct maps with memories and the tread of modern warfare. A concluding essay by MIT professor Nasser Rabbat provides additional historical context. Christine Gedeon first exhibited this series of works in 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn and then at Jane Lombard Gallery in 2018.