NYU Law Grad Turns to Legos as Art Career

March 25, 2010
New York, NY

Nathan Sawaya used to be an attorney, but has made quite the switch—to “Lego Artist.” Currently in his thirties, he gleams the satisfaction of a child who playfully builds and creates works of his imagination … with those little colorful bricks.

With life-size Lego statues bearing heavy emotional intensity in their features and positions, Sawaya has managed to portray significant meanings and moods through the simplest of childrens’ toys. Many of his sculptures are human figures and faces, posing like Greek gods with a sense of ambiguity and emotion, yet framed in the almost petty context of primary-colored toy blocks.





Sawaya’s past is unique in that he started off as a Journalism major during his undergraduate years, later moving on to the NYU School of Law. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life—and, well, at the time I figured Law school was the sort of thing society accepted.”

But in 2000, Sawaya discovered his talent in creativity when he began making large-scale 3D pieces out of candy. He moved on to Legos because he's always loved to play with them, but has managed to “break out of the idea that I’m using toys as a medium," he said. "I'm able to portray something far more meaningful and deep”—like the emotion etched in a human face or a nude body—through simple childhood toys.



On the night of March 25, 2010—the show’s opening—Agora gallery was jam-packed with enthusiastic viewers who appeared to be reliving their childhood through the “toy” sculptures.

Sawaya says that he has to glue all the Legos together in order to prevent them from falling apart while transporting them across the country. His work is currently touring the U.S. in the Art of the Brick Museum exhibit.

"BRICK BY BRICK: The LEGO Brick Sculptures of Nathan Sawaya" will be held from March 23 until April 13, 2010. The Agora Gallery is located in Chelsea, on 530 West 25th Street.

Most Dingy Dive Bars in the Village

Find the official version on WSN's website when the vice issue comes out... Whenever that happens.

Over Spring Break I went searching for something that perhaps I had no right to search for—the New York City of the late 70’s and early 80’s. I was looking for the era of sexy Nan Goldin photographs, when the East Village was a scene of angry punks and real grit; teeming with AIDs and raw sexuality and leather jackets (worn by real punks, not the Urban Outfitters kind.)



Nan Goldin

Back when St. Mark’s was more than just a tourist trap. I’m talking about the drug-filled days when NYU hadn’t penetrated and expanded into every corner of the Village … When gentrification was just a distant future; before the glam-tastic spoiled rich kids moved in. And I went looking for a remnant of this lost era, in the dirtiest, darkest dive bars I could find.



David Wojnarowicz, Nan Goldin

Mars Bar.
“Real people getting real drunk for real reasons. Scrape up a stool and don't be stand-offish. Breathe deep, smell the...humanity, and don't think. Drink!” –kntkeeslem on Citysearch



1st St and 2nd Ave
Enormous painted red letters, looking like they were scrawled over its graffiti-covered doorway by a drunken anarchist in the 70’s, read “MARS BAR NYCITY USA.” The sign is epic in its lack of design or aesthetics. It’s handwritten, crooked and almost as demanding as the punk music inside. Upon entering, I realized that this is the kind of dump where someone has probably been knocked unconscious during a bar fight, or dragged themselves into a corner like a shivering rat four hours later, and/or died in the filth-stained bathrooms mid-puke/pee. It’s all about grime, grit, grease, pills, and gasoline-potent liquor. I suggest going anytime past midnight, which is when the old punks past their prime crawl in. Don’t squirm when the bum next to you leans over to rasp something incoherent, his breath reeking of booze; acting like a squirmy suburban kid might be the worst thing to do. Just nod, relax, and get in touch with your inner inebriated garage-punk bum.

Double Down Saloon.
“You puke, you clean.”

14 Avenue A (between 2nd St and Houston)
The Double Down welcomes its guests with a hand-painted sign in its window exclaiming, “Shut up and Drink.” Other favorites at this messy-walled joint are “Buy our shit”, including the famous “Ass Juice” drink. No one I asked knew what exactly was in Ass Juice, and the bartenders won’t give away its secret recipe, except that it’s made of five types of liquor. There’s a jukebox, pool table and old rocking horse in the back covered in stickers and graffiti.



You can ride this rocking-horse while watching disturbing, obscene cartoons flashing on the TV above the bar. Although the walls are covered in dodgy paintings and graffiti, the Double Down is a more moderate type of grimy, for those who are too shy to venture into the bowels of Mars Bar.



Lakeside Lounge.

162 Avenue B (Between 10th and 11th St)
If either of these places are too much grit and filth for you, but you still like a good, cheap Happy Hour, low ceilings and an old photobooth (and live music) head over to the Lakeside Lounge. The Lakeside Lounge is not as scary as Mars or Double Down, but still holds a certain kind of dingy underground-bar feeling. Weekday happy hours fill up with locals and the occasional drifty grease balls, so you're not missing the grit.


Although it’s not quite the same as the way things used to be three decades ago, you can still find some fear and filth in these holes in the city. I didn’t find the gritty-romantic Nan Goldin-esque NYC I was looking for, but learned that the down-to-earth side of Manhattan still exists in some places. Rub elbows with aged punks, piss in a toilet that hasn’t been cleaned in decades (miss & don't care), and then stumble out into the streets of the Village at 3am screaming “God Save the Queen,” smelling of smoke and cheap shots. Don’t let the long lost NYC down—get out there, grab yourself an Ass Juice, and gulp it down like a grit-ball. Hipsters can stay home.

Sense of Smell goes a long way at Headspace panel

March 26, 2010
Parsons the New School for Design
New York, NY

In the age of technological revolution, less emphasis is placed on the importance of direct human senses. But Majora Carter, born and raised in the South Bronx, is on a mission to discover a specific smell that can change the way members of her community feel about their environment.

“Scent is very powerful in that it can lift or lower your spirits,” Carter said during the event “Headspace: On Scent as Design” at the New School on Friday afternoon.

In partnership with MoMA and International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (IFF), Coty Inc. and Seed, designers, scientists and perfumists sought to discuss how “new science is exploring the ways in which scent stimulates cognition, memory, and the production of experience,” said Paola Antonelli. Antonelli is a senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA who helped create the program.

Majora Carter considers herself an “accidental” perfumer. She is an environmental justice advocate and a South Bronx activist, who has been a major proponent of change in poor, run-down areas of the ghetto where she originated. One of her many projects include the South Bronx Greenway, a successful framework that brought clean parks, walking paths and greenery to the South Bronx waterfront.


Carter

But Carter is taking her activism a step closer to direct sensory experiences. After realizing that disinvestment, poor building ventilation and build-up of trash in her old neighborhood had produced unhealthy and unpleasant odors, she wanted to discover a scent that could impact the community in a positive way.

“I wanted to make people feel hopeful, as though things can be better because their environment smells nice,” she stated during her lecture at the New School. “I wanted people to see green, white and blue colors when they smelled the air, instead of the usual grey and brown.”

Carter was inspired by memories of childhood – growing up in the Bronx was different than it is now, she said. “I used to be able to smell that sweet scent of rain after a storm; I can’t do that now. And before they tore down the Bread Factory, the air used to be scented with fresh bread.”

She wants to install those same sensations and smells she had as a child to the sidewalks and building air ducts of the Bronx community in a modern way.

With the help of two professional perfumists—Frenchman Pascal Gaurin and Yugoslavian Bruno Jovanovic—Carter hopes to create a smell that is a mixture of rain, trees, and grass—and ultimately achieve something that is as much a work of design as it is an environmental reform.

“If [Carter] can do it, I think [she’ll] be able to change the whole borough,” Jovanovic said during the panel.