Tag: New York

A Gallery Grows in Brooklyn

MAY 11, 2018

How do you open an art gallery of your own in New York City, where real estate costs defy gravity, and focus on emerging artists of color who don’t yet fetch the kinds of prices necessary to cover commercial rent—while also selling to people who don’t think of themselves as buyers or collectors of art?

It was a question that vexed curator and writer Stephanie Baptist in the four years after she returned home to the US from the UK, where she had been working as the inaugural head of exhibitions and public programs for Tiwani Contemporary, a London gallery specializing in artists from Africa and its diaspora. Baptist thought back to her work as a graduate student at Goldsmiths, where she had been interested in transforming unused spaces—from abandoned parking lots to city blocks directly under elevated subway tracks—as platforms for arts and culture in underserved communities.  [full story]

For Muslim New Yorkers, Final Rites That Fit

JAN 8, 2006

ERHAN YILDIRIM is singing in Arabic. His voice barely rises above the sound of the water that falls onto ceramic tiles after it spills over the lifeless body in front of him.

In mournful tones, Mr. Yildirim celebrates God — “He is great, and there is no God but God” — as he prepares yet another immigrant for a proper Muslim burial, one that will bring the man closer to his homeland than he has been in years.

On this late November day, Mr. Yildirim, who is trained to be an imam, then performs the man’s last ablution. It is the same ritual that every Muslim performs in life before prayer: washing the feet, hands and face. Mr. Yildirim then washes the entire body with olive oil soap before fetching a pure cotton shroud and wrapping it around the naked body like a cocoon.[full story]