New York City IV 

Curator: Richard Lindner's canvas, seemingly titled "New York City IV," assaults the eye in a rather provocative manner. The city reduced to component parts. Editor: Whoa, intense! It's like the city exploded and reassembled itself as a weird fashion show directed by a broken traffic light. Kind of thrilling and unsettling all at once, you know? Curator: Indeed. The color relationships here are quite calculated; note the tension created between the saturated red of the boy's jacket and the muted violet backdrop. Editor: Yeah, the red really POPS, doesn't it? And then the random dog floating in the background adds this bizarre touch of normalcy, or… something? Is it saying, like, "even in the chaotic city, dogs exist"? Curator: Precisely. Consider also the deployment of geometric forms. The composition reflects Lindner’s interest in the fragmentation and restructuring of reality – a common approach of his era. It seems New York is reconfigured here. Editor: Okay, art-speak aside, it just screams "New York, New York!" to me, but a New York viewed through a fractured, slightly demented lens. The mix of figures...a street urchin in that severe red uniform and that mannequin lady with a baseball cap just hanging out is funny, in a dark way. Curator: His figuration is far from representational but the arrangement certainly echoes Cubist methodology; an overlapping of various aspects in one composite image. Editor: Right. It’s as if he is saying you cannot really see New York any other way. It only presents itself as disjointed and strange and you simply get on with it...or it runs you over. Curator: It is definitely evocative and rather sardonic and certainly reflective of modern approaches to the representation of place, time, and identity. Editor: So, the next time I’m stuck in traffic looking at a red light, I’ll remember this image – and maybe start sketching out my own fashion-nightmare version of my hometown!