ALEXIS ROCKMAN
A NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY
ESSAY BY JONATHAN LETHEM CONTENTS R
L
A Bruckner Boulevard, Bronx 6 F S N D M B Clay Pit Ponds Preserve, Staten Island 8
A C New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, Brooklyn 12
D Palisades, Fort Lee, New Jersey 15
E Jacob Riis Beach, Queens 17
F Tighe Triangle, Manhattan 21
G North of the Lake, Central Park, Manhattan 22 J G H 73rd St. and 5th Ave., Manhattan 23 K H
I Coney Island Beach, Brooklyn 24 O
J Turtle Pond, Central Park, Manhattan 30
K The Lake, Central Park, Manhattan 35 T L Pelham Bay Park, Bronx 39
M Swindler Cove, Harlem River, Bronx 42 C
N Sherman Creek, Harlem River, Bronx 43
O Under the 59th St. Bridge, Manhattan 44
P JFK Airport Short-Term Parking, Queens 46
Q Jamaica Bay, Queens 48 P
R Mount Saint Vincent, Bronx 49
S Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan 50 U
T 69 Bedford St., Manhattan 51 Q
U Canarsie Pier, Brooklyn 54
Immaculate Kills by Jonathan Lethem 59
E Biography 60 I
Acknowledgments 61
B
3 FIELD DRAWINGS BRUCKNER BOULEVARD BRONX, 2015
SOIL, GLASS, CIGARETTE PACKAGE, CIGARETTE BUTTS, LEAVES, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
MILLIPEDE RELATIVE Arthropleura 14.25 × 20 inches
HORSETAIL Calamites 20 × 14.25 inches SEED FERN Neuropteris 24 × 18 inches
7 CLAY PIT PONDS PRESERVE STATEN ISLAND, 2015
CRETACEOUS PERIOD CLAY, SAND, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
TYRANNOSAUR 18 × 24 inches ANKYLOSAUR 18 × 24 inches
GLOSSY IBIS Plegadis falcinellus 11.875 × 15.875 inches
9 HADROSAUR 18 × 24 inches BALD EAGLE Haliaeetus leucocephalus 18 × 24 inches
11 NEW YORK CITY WATER TUNNEL NO. 3 BROOKLYN, 2015
CRETACEOUS PERIOD FOSSIL AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
ORNITHOMIMID 14.25 × 20 inches
TYRANNOSAUR Appalachiosaurus 18 × 24 inches
13 PALISADES FORT LEE, NEW JERSEY, 2015
TRIASSIC PERIOD FOSSIL AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
LAUREL Prunus 15.875 × 11.875 inches PHYTOSAUR Rutiodon 18 × 24 inches
GINGKO Ginkgo 9 × 12.25 inches GLIDING REPTILE Icarosaurus 9 × 12.25 inches
15 JACOB RIIS BEACH QUEENS, 2015
SAND AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
COELACANTH Osteopleurus 11.875 × 15.875 inches CERVID Cervalces 18 × 24 inches
THEROPOD Coelophysis 9 × 12.25 inches ATLANTIC WHITE-SIDED DOLPHIN Lagenorhynchus acutus 11.875 × 15.875 inches
17 WALRUS Odobenus rosmarus 18 × 24 inches MUSK OX Ovibos 18 × 24 inches
19 TIGHE TRIANGLE MANHATTAN, 2015
SOIL, LEAVES, TWIGS, PLANT ROOTS, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
GIANT GROUND SLOTH Megatherium 18 × 24 inches AMERICAN MASTODON Mammut americanum 18 × 24 inches
21 NORTH OF THE LAKE, CENTRAL PARK MANHATTAN, 2015 73RD ST. AND 5TH AVE. MANHATTAN, 2015
SOIL, SAND, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER SOIL, SAND, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
HAL THE COYOTE Canis latrans 11.875 × 15.875 inches
PALE MALE THE RED-TAILED HAWK Buteo jamaicensis 24 × 18 inches
23 CONEY ISLAND BEACH BROOKLYN, 2015
SAND AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
SPINY DOGFISH Squalus acanthias 11.875 × 15.875 inches
SAND TIGER SHARK Carcharias taurus 18 × 24 inches
ORANGE SEA STAR Linckia sp. 12.25 × 9 inches
25 MONARCH BUTTERFLY Danaus plexippus 9 × 12.25 inches
QUAHOG Mercenaria mercenaria 12.25 × 9 inches PORGY Stenotomus chrysops 9 × 12.25 inches
27 CREVALLE JACK Caranx hippos 11.875 × 15.875 inches GREY-HEADED GULL Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus 11.875 × 15.875 inches
LADY CRAB Ovalipes ocellatus 9 × 12.25 inches
29 TURTLE POND, CENTRAL PARK MANHATTAN, 2016
SOIL, LEAVES, TWIGS, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
CRABAPPLE Malus sp. 12.25 × 9 inches
GREAT EGRET Ardea alba 24 × 18 inches COMMON MUSK TURTLE Sternotherus odoratus 9 × 12.25 inches
31 EASTERN PAINTED TURTLE Chrysemys picta picta 12.25 × 9 inches RED-EARED SLIDER Trachemys scripta elegans 12.25 × 9 inches
YELLOW-BELLIED SLIDER Trachemys scripta scripta 9 × 12.25 inches COMMON SNAPPING TURTLE Chelydra serpentina 9 × 12.25 inches
33 THE LAKE, CENTRAL PARK MANHATTAN, 2016
SOIL, LEAVES, TWIGS, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
BLUE GILL Lepomis macrochirus BLACK CRAPPIE Pomoxis nigromaculatus
PUMPKINSEED Lepomis gibbosus 14.25 × 20 inches
MAGNOLIA Magnolia grandiflora 15.875 × 11.875 inches
NORWAY RAT Rattus norvegicus 9 × 12.25 inches
35 MALLARD Anas platyrhynchos 11.875 × 15.875 inches
VIRGINIA OPOSSUM Didelphis virginiana 15.875 × 11.875 inches GOLDFISH Carassius auratus 9 × 12.25 inches
37 PELHAM BAY PARK BRONX, 2016
SAND AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
YELLOW PERCH Perca flavescens 9 × 12.25 inches
MINKE WHALE Balaenoptera acutorostrata 18 × 24 inches
LARGEMOUTH BASS Micropterus salmoides 15.875 × 11.875 inches EAR MOTH Amphipoea erepta ryensis 9 × 12.25 inches
39 BARRED OWL Strix varia 15.875 × 11.875 inches STRIPED SKUNK Mephitis mephitis 15.875 × 11.875 inches
NORTHERN TWO-LINED SALAMANDER Eurycea bislineata 9 × 12.25 inches BAYBERRY Myrica cerifera 11.875 × 15.875 inches
41 SWINDLER COVE, HARLEM RIVER BRONX, 2016 SHERMAN CREEK, HARLEM RIVER BRONX, 2016
SEDIMENT, SAND, LEAVES, TWIGS, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER SEDIMENT, SAND, LEAVES, TWIGS, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
GREAT BLUE HERON Ardea herodias 18 × 24 inches AMERICAN BEAVER Castor canadensis 11.875 × 15.875 inches
MUSKRAT Ondatra zibethicus 9 × 12.25 inches OVENBIRD Seiurus aurocapilla 9 × 12.25 inches
43 UNDER THE 59TH ST. BRIDGE MANHATTAN, 2016
PEBBLES, SAND, SEDIMENT, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
AMERICAN CONGER Conger oceanicus 14.25 × 20 inches
FLORIDA MANATEE Trichechus manatus latirostris 18 × 24 inches
45 JOHN F. KENNEDY AIRPORT SHORT-TERM PARKING QUEENS, 2016
MULCH, SOIL, LEAVES, SAND, TWIGS, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
SNOWY OWL Bubo scandiacus 14.25 × 20 inches
CANADA GOOSE Branta canadensis 18 × 24 inches
BLACK-TAILED JACKRABBIT Lepus californicus 11.875 × 15.875 inches
47 JAMAICA BAY QUEENS, 2016 MOUNT SAINT VINCENT BRONX, 2016
CLAMSHELL, PEBBLES, SAND, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER SAND, FINE GRAVEL, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT Phalacrocorax auritus 11.875 × 15.875 inches ATLANTIC STURGEON Acipenser oxyrhynchus 18 × 24 inches
EASTERN OYSTER Crassostrea virginica 9 × 12.25 inches
49 FORT TRYON PARK MANHATTAN, 2016 69 BEDFORD ST. MANHATTAN, 2016
SOIL AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER SOIL, SAND, LEAVES, TWIGS, PINE BRANCH, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
CALLIOPE HUMMINGBIRD Selasphorus calliope 9 × 12.25 inches
TREE OF HEAVEN Ailanthus altissima 24 × 18 inches
51 HOUSE MOUSE Mus musculus 9 × 12.25 inches
EASTERN GRAY SQUIRREL Sciurus carolinensis 11.875 × 15.875 inches
AMERICAN COCKROACH Periplaneta americana 12.25 × 9 inches MOURNING DOVE Zenaida macroura 15.875 × 11.875 inches
53 CANARSIE PIER BROOKLYN, 2016
SAND, SOIL, AND ACRYLIC POLYMER ON PAPER
HARBOR SEAL Phoca vitulina 18 × 24 inches
GOLDENROD Solidago virgaurea canadensis 24 × 18 inches
55 EASTERN POISON IVY Toxicodendron radicans 18 × 24 inches
57 IMMACULATE KILLS BY JONATHAN LETHEM
TERMINAL LANDFILL Much of the life that had ceded itself to the city was returning now, but that might be because it had never At daybreak, in the long shadow of the recycling pylons of truly gone away. Lexicon found it unremarkable lately to the abandoned transfer station, the dew-jeweled mudflats be surveyed by coyotes in his work; the eagles nesting in had usually reached the optimum viscosity for Lexicon to the ledges of a building such as this one no longer paused make his daily extractions. Using the same implements with to regard him as anything out of the ordinary. One day he which he’d later scrape and smear the hieroglyphic images, saw a pterosaur flap between the buildings. Lexicon knew he’d learned to lever the soil and detritus, the mud of it would have been vain to credit this to his own romance bone and feathers, from the clay basin that had leavened with the epochs that had become desublimated by the overnight like a scale model of the continental tables. Its disaster. Like an Omega Man thronged by completely shifting ingredients composed an index of the spectrum indifferent vampires, he roved among them, etching their of vanished and returning creatures Lexicon felt he might images like pictographic runes onto the palimpsest of his conjure back into the city by the act of painting them. In own civilization, one shadow overtaking another, as if lit in fact, Lexicon knew well he was the least essential feature time-frozen bomb shadows. Lexicon might have been the of this system, a roving and possibly invisible eyeball who hand moving across this page, but he knew himself to be happened to be installed atop a vertebrate apparatus the subject himself of these concrete reveries, fragments of unsuited, between interludes of self-feeding and rest, to the myths and dreams of the city’s past, recast out of the much more than these sporadic manipulations of mud, shit, carboniferous slab and sediment, the fossil lagoons. fossils, and snot. Making his observations and extractions, leaving his traces in honorable clawings and scorings of the THE MUSEUM INVERTED sun-drying flat surfaces within his reach: this was the least he could do in return for having been beckoned by ancient They crossed the cool marble floors of the museum on instinct from his hovel to give witness. all fours. Others slithered or crawled, and through the smashed atrium winged creatures hovered and slowed The steel towers glinting behind him still appeared familiar, for careful entry. The vitrines depicted him in a variety of but it had begun to seem to Lexicon that he was destined poignant efforts, the walker-in-cities, Man in the Holocene. never to return to them. It was the coyotes who’d long occupied the great park at the center of the island who made themselves most at home PALEONTOLOGICAL RAINS in the exhibition, crowding together and making a kind of den or shrine at the last of the dioramas, which showed Lexicon removed the wrecked sections of corrugated tin the human scooping amphibian detritus from his palette that had been meant to defend the pit at the center of to outline a sketch of a red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus the construction site from the recent storms. Seepage viridescens). The embossed label at the foot of the from below had made them irrelevant, and soon Lexicon detailed vitrine read “S. Karma Lexicon, Naturalist and was up to his knees in the cool flooded sand. He’d come Draftsman”; behind the model, at whose foot were strewn into the open-roofed subbasement only after exhausting his art materials, a detailed painting showed the damaged his plunder of the neighboring blocks, which had been skyline, certain towers smoldering gently to the open sky. completed and abandoned in short order. The abandoned Nevertheless, the scene was a peaceful one. The human city contained a wealth of materials, for both his use had been portrayed as happy in his effort. and contemplation, stratum of forsaken implements and keepsakes, layered over the raw animal evidence which was his true subject. Now the turtles lived inside the casings of the ruined computers, the darter snails within the mutely eloquent plumbing of a his-and-hers double-ink or slate-tiled walk-in-shower area. Lexicon could never have afforded this apartment himself. He sometimes envied even the pets whose starved bones still bore collars or even leashes. But of course it was the native species he sought, and for that he ordinarily had to delve beneath the devastated infrastructure.
59 BIOGRAPHY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Alexis Rockman was born in 1962 in New York City, where he studied at the Art Students League Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn from 1978 to 1979. He also studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, from 1980 Dorothy Spears to 1982 and the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he received his BFA in 1985. Jon Kalish Rockman has exhibited extensively worldwide since 1985. He has been featured in a number of solo museum exhibitions including Dioramas at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston Carl Mehling—senior scientific assistant in the Division of Paleontology at the (1996); Alexis Rockman: A Recent History of the World at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary American Museum of Natural History Art, Ridgefield, CT (1999); Manifest Destiny at the Brooklyn Museum (2005, traveling to the Chris Bowser and the participants at the A Day in the Life of the Hudson River event, organized Rhode Island School of Design, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, and Grand by the NYSDEC Hudson River Estuary Program, National Estuarine Research Reserve System, Arts, Kansas City, MO); Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow at the Smithsonian American Art New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Museum, Washington, DC (2010, traveling to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH); and Alexis Rockman: The Weight of Air at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Eric Sanderson—senior conservation ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society MA. His work is represented in public and private collections worldwide, including the Brooklyn Museum; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; John Waldman—PhD, professor of biology, Queens College Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art; and Tom Baione—Harold Boeschenstein Director, Department of Library Services, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. American Museum of Natural History
Rockman collaborated with director Ang Lee on the prize-winning film Life of Pi, serving as Jonathan Lethem “Inspirational Artist” preparing conceptual drawings to serve as visual reference. E. J. McAdams He has been the subject of many exhibition catalogues and monographic publications including Jeff Smith Alexis Rockman, published by the Monacelli Press in 2003. J. A. Forde at Company Agenda Rockman lives and works in New York City. His detailed biography and exhibition history can be found at alexisrockman.net/cv. Alex Brown Meredith Dunn
61 A Natural History of New York City
Published by
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Publication © 2016 Salon 94
All artwork © Alexis Rockman
Text © 2016 Jonathan Lethem
Photography © Adam Reich
Designed by Jon Kalish
Printed by GHP, West Haven, Connecticut
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ISBN: 978-0-9778807-2-0