The New York City Bodega
Like ourselves, Sofrito For Your Soul is an online magazine that promotes the evolution of Latino culture in the United States. Sofrito brought Josh's art work to our attention and we are happy to present him to you for a little flavor of the east coast.
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The Artwork of Josh Goldstein
Density...Chaos...Disrepair...Impermanence...Diversity...Simultaneity...Disorder
The soul of New York City is this.
The soul of New York City resonates in the cacophony of wildly divergent wants, needs, and desires, of its citizens, both past and present, all crammed together and forced to coexist in a seemingly uncaring urban landscape.
New York's densely frenetic layering is a major inspiration for my work. I love how old storefront signs peak out behind new ones, and how a building door can be a canvas for artists, taggers, and guerrilla marketers. A lamppost is rarely just a lamppost. It is a community bulletin board, graffiti showcase, exercise bar, and old sneaker receptacle.
To me the city is at its best when its functions overlap, histories intermingle, and cultures collide, creating exciting and ambiguous new relationships. This delirious frenzy, the heart of New York City's ecology, engages a "war between beauty and ugliness which demands both become strange new things."
My chopped-up, blown-apart and reconstructed sculptural photo collages are an homage to the churning engine of New York, which is constantly creating new cities, both beautiful and ugly, right on top of the old one.
A Diverse Begining
Born to a Mexican mama and a Jewish papa, I have lived in New York City since 1994, studying architecture, working as an architect, and riding my bike. Spurred by a road trip through the southwest where my wife and I took pictures of old chop suey parlors and 24-hour donut shops, I began photographing signs and storefronts on my rides around the city. Chinese fish markets, Jamaican patty palaces, Hassidic hat shops, and halal live chicken markets/auto repair shops all interested me.
The classic New York City bodega especially caught my attention. I am attracted by the bodegas' bright colors, bold graphics, and rotating set of key words and phrases, as well as by their can-do entrepreneurial spirit and current state of faded glory. Over the past 5 years I have photographed hundreds of bodegas around Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and especially the Bronx.
Though five years ago I would have never thought it possible, I am starting to run out of new bodegas. So I refocused my eyes, and BAM! Chinese take-out joints, laundromats, Coney Island hot dog stands, and mid-town street vendors are all around me, and they look good.
Some of my larger works are hanging at the Bronx Library Center, Vitamin Water and Frank 151 headquarters, and Credit Suisse First Boston world headquarters in Switzerland, as well as various private collections. My work has been shown at Jan Larson Art, and the BAM Jewish Film Festival, and been featured in the New York Times and Daily News.
The New York City Bodega
Nobody seems to know the exact origins of the bright, corrugated metal awnings and signs that crown countless bodegas throughout New York City, but for over 30 years, their flashing bulbs have beckoned with promises of ice cold beer and sodas, hot coffee and sandwiches , and fresh meat .
These signs are part of the unmistakable landscape of New York, a burst of tropical warmth that spread from Latin neighborhoods to create a comfort zone on nearly every corner. But one by one, bodegueros - as the store owners call themselves in Spanish -- are tearing down these iconic relics in favor of cheaper, impermanent vinyl awnings. They're supposed to make bodegas look clean, modern and successful, and maybe they do. But soon, the classic metal bodega sign may be nothing more than a Goya-tinged memory.
I hope my photograghs, mounted on plywood, richly colored and boldly contrasted, capture the raw, vibrant energy of New York City, its bodegas, and the folks who keep them open all night.
The Works
Lately, I have started to break out of the square.
Well, not really.
Everything I do is still based on the square, but I am putting a lot more of them together. A whole lot. That, in addition to non-bodega images, and intense collage, are the biggest changes in my work lately.
The collage work has turned out to be the most fun and interesting aspect for me. I layer in images of Chinese, Chinese-Guyanese, Indo-Chinese, and Chino-Latino take-out menus, graffiti, bus maps, Russian movie posters, street art, Pakistani kebob carts, subway timetables, "No Parking" signs, Goya packaging, manhole covers, Mr. Softee trucks, Geovanny Polanco concert posters, Burmese, Arabic, and Bulgarian newspapers, and of course, glatt kosher Bukharan restaurant sandwich boards.
The piece, "El Taco Loco", incorporates this dense layering. It is from a taco stand in the Bronx. "Hot Fried Coney" is taken from old hand-painted signs at a Coney Island snack bar. And Super Live is a Combo Platter of 4 of my favorite bodegas in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
These multi-panel works are offered exclusively at Jan Larsen Art, in the DUMBO district of Brooklyn, NYC. Contact JLA by email at janlarsenart at earthlink.net or ring (718) 797-2557 to view the work.
Visit the BFC Art Gallery to more of Josh's work.
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