Articles by

laura itzkowitz

Laura Itzkowitz, NYC arts editor/Untapped Paris editor: Laura was born and raised in the Boston area, but has always felt like a New Yorker at heart. She has a B.A. in French from Smith College, studied in Paris for a year, and lived in Rome for two years. She’s currently working on an MFA in creative writing and translation at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. In addition to her regular contributions to Untapped, Laura’s writing has been featured on The Huffington Post, Business Insider, The Culture-ist, Words Without Borders and others.

 
Newsstand
Arts & Culture
05/22/13 9:00am

ICP Triennial Pushes the Boundaries of Photography

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ICP Triennial Untapped Cities

If you’re looking for cutting-edge work in photography and video art, the International Center of Photography (ICP) is the place to go. Their fourth Triennial, A Different Kind of Order, opened on Friday and it showcases work by some of the best and brightest contemporary artists. The curators, Kristen Lubben, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers, and Joanna Lehan, took digital modes of creation as a given and set out to create a show that would push the boundaries of photography to see how far it can go.  (more…)

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Architecture
05/14/13 12:00pm

Diderot’s 1765 Plans for the Louvre

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Grand Gallery of the Louvre by Thomas Allom c. 1844

Grand Gallery of the Louvre by Thomas Allom c. 1844

Did you know that the encyclopedists wanted to open up the gardens and galleries of the Louvre Palace to the public long before it was slated to become a museum? The Palais du Louvre was constructed in 1190 by Philippe Auguste as a fortress to protect against Norman invasions. It was home to François Ier during the Renaissance. Henri IV built the Grand Gallery connecting the royal apartments in the Louvre to the Tuileries palace.  The Louvre as it appears today was completed under Louis XIV, with additions by Louis XV. But it was only after the French Revolution that the Louvre was finally converted from a royal residence to the museum we know and love today. But over a decade before the Revolution, when Diderot and D’Alembert were compiling the Encyclopedia, their entry for the Louvre not only tells the palace’s history but makes some suggestions for its use that were rather advanced at the time: (more…)

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Arts & Culture
05/13/13 1:00pm

Untapped Cities Founder Michelle Young in Dîner en Blanc Documentary

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“Diner En Blanc” Trailer from fungible on Vimeo.

Dîner en Blanc: the World’s Largest Dinner Party will be screened today at 6pm at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem. Untapped Cities founder Michelle Young was one of the participants interviewed for the documentary, as she prepared for the annual pop-up white dinner in Paris, an event she has attended since 2010. Michelle also discusses the planning for New York City’s Dîner en Blanc, for which she was a group leader last year.  (more…)

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Architecture
05/10/13 2:00pm

The Players Club Might Be Shut Down After 125 Years on Gramercy Park

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The Players_Club_New York City_Gramercy Park-5

We recently learned the distressing news that The Players Club, Gramercy Park’s members-only theater club, might be shut down due to financial mishandling. The Players, which we visited in February on a behind the scenes tour, recently celebrated its 125th anniversary, making it the oldest private club in New York City still in its original location.

The Players Club was founded in 1888 by Edwin Booth, a Shakespearian actor and brother of John Wilkes Booth, together with fifteen incorporators, including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman. The Players occupies a beautiful five story Greek revival townhouse and members have access to a key that opens Gramercy Park. It was originally an all male club for actors to get to know society men. The club has an incredibly rich history, as evidenced by the many artifacts housed there, including Mark Twain’s pool cue, Booth’s costumes from Shakespearian dramas, and even the skull of an admirer that Booth used in Hamlet’s soliloquy. Portraits of the club’s members, including Carey Grant, Gregory Peck, Tommy Lee Jones, Liza Minelli, Jimmy Fallon, and many more hang on the wall by the staircase.

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Arts & Culture
05/10/13 12:00pm

PULSE Art Fair Editor’s Picks (PHOTOS)

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At Untapped Cities, we love getting to know established and emerging artists who are creating interesting, thought-provoking work. This is why we love art fairs, where you can wander from booth to booth and see what’s happening in the art world now. PULSE has gathered together some of the best and the brightest at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea for a four-day fair that started yesterday and will run until Sunday. According to Director Cornell DeWitt, what sets PULSE apart is the Impulse initiative for emerging artists—the upper level of the fair is devoted entirely to them, with more established artists on the ground floor. They are also one of the few art fairs that includes performance art. I’m presenting here my picks for the most promising artists at PULSE.

Hyper-photo by Jean François Rauzier, represented by Waterhouse & Dodd. I first saw Rauzier's hyper-photos at SCOPE, where he exhibited an amazing image from Pantin, the graffiti mecca outside Paris.

Hyper-photo by French artist Jean François Rauzier, represented by London-based gallery Waterhouse & Dodd. I first saw Rauzier’s hyper-photos at SCOPE, where he exhibited an amazing image from Pantin, the graffiti mecca outside Paris. This image is a composite of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the Library of Congress, paintings from various museums and other elements.

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Guides
04/06/13 10:02am

The Mad Men Guide to New York City

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We love Mad Men and can’t get enough. In addition to the character development, plot twists and 1960s period costumes (which are totally back in style), we love seeing some of our favorite locations in New York City depicted on the show. From Madison Avenue to Waverly Place, many of the locales that Don and the rest of the characters frequented are still around and just as successful as they were in the ’60s. In anticipation of Season 6, here’s our Mad Men Guide to New York City with our favorite locations featured on Seasons 1-5. We can’t wait to see what’s in store in Sunday’s Season Premier, and add Season 6 locations to our Mad Men Guide.

Mad Men Guide to New York Untapped New York

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