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M.T. Karthik

~ midcareer archive, 1977 – 2017 plus 2022

M.T. Karthik

Tag Archives: street

Street Art, Signage and Posters in Amsterdam Autumn ’22

20 Sunday Nov 2022

Posted by mtk in 2022, Amsterdam, art, conceptual art, dutch, journalism, landscape

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AMS, Amsterdam, art, Karthik, m.t., m.t. karthik, mtk, posters, signage, signs, street, streetart

MTK Riffs Upper Manhattan in Winter

20 Saturday Aug 2022

Posted by mtk in 2022, conceptual art, NYC, photography

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Tags

art, christmas, journa;ism, Karthik, m.t., manhattan, Metropolitan, Modern, MOMA, mtk, Museum, new, NYC, Opera, photos, side, street, streets, trees, upper, xmas, york

This post is like a Table of Contents. It’s a meta-post of links to photojournalistic blogposts of my trip to New York six months ago, amidst the Omicron wave of Covid in Manhattan, for five days in late January. The links are in chronological order, and refer back progressively, like chapters about my trip.

Wednesday

I was able to film as we approached on the afternoon of January 19th, flying into New York City.

landing at La Guardia on a clear, sunny day.

Later that night I took Tom to the Metropolitan Opera to see Quinn Kelsey perform Rigoletto.

Thursday

The next morning it dropped thirty degrees and snowed. I spent two hours at the Museum of Modern Art catching the last days of exhibitions of work by Joseph E. Yoakum, Sophie Teauber-Arp and others.

The streets were weirdly quiet and absent of crowds – like I have never seen Manhattan before, even in the heart of winter. New York was dead.

sparsely populated Manhattan streets

That afternoon and evening I hung out at Summit One Vanderbilt, which was exceptional. Because I purchased the afternoon Premium ticket, the sunset ticket, with access to the elevator to the summit, I was able to hang out in the bar all evening, where I was joined in conversation and fun by rotating groups of tourists (wonderful conversations atop Manhattan), and the elevator to the highest viewpoint was amazing.

view from the bar atop One Vanderbilt

Friday

… was in the 30’s.

I hit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see Surrealism Beyond Borders, which surprised me.

Saturday

had a perfect breakfast sandwich at Chez Nick in Yorkville, a place to which I returned – delicious spot over there. It was the week that people were putting their Christmas trees out for pick up. Many people and hotels instead, turned them into decorative features in front of their buildings.

Xmas tree dumping week.

Sunday

January 23rd was my chance by appointment only to catch the last days of the chronological exhibition on the ramps of the Guggenheim, Kandinsky at the Gugg. That was, quite frankly, an excellent exhibition.

Five days in Manhattan: Opera. Museums. Observation Bar. Streets. and tossed out Xmas trees – Lakshmi-auntie would approve.

That’s for New York.

Love,

mtk

50,000 Male Freetail Bats Go Hunting at Twilight

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by mtk in fauna

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Tags

#batloco, 50k, antonio, bachelor, bat, bats, colony, downtown, event, freetail, freeway, highway, loco, Mexican, Newell, San, street, texas, thousand

Image

winter passion flower

18 Tuesday Dec 2012

Tags

2012, desmond, flower, Karthik, m.t., mtk, oakland, passion, street, winter

winterpassionflower2012

Posted by mtk | Filed under flora, North Oakland, photography

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Bloody Thursday, a 5th of July at Mission and Steuart Streets in SF

16 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by mtk in installations, journalism, mural, S.F., sculpture

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1934, 1985, 5th, An, art, bloody, Bordoise, contract, Injury, July, Longshoremen, memorial, Mission, one, public, san francisco, sculpture, sf, Sperry, Steuart, Steuert, street, strike, Thursday, to, union

Public art to commemorate “Bloody Thursday” at the corner of Mission and Steuart Streets in San Francisco. The four-day general strike in SF in the summer of 1934 led to unionization of all the West Coast ports of the United States:

37° 47.602′ N, 122° 23.593′ W

Painted in 1985 by an artist’s collective, this mural-sculpture was placed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union near the previous memorial, this plaque:

When the Hotel Vitale was built in 2004, the sculpture and plaque were moved a short distance and re-erected, with the plaque now mounted on the wall of the hotel. (Source)

The strike began on May 9, 1934 as longshoremen in every West Coast port walked out; sailors joined them several days later. The employers recruited strikebreakers, housing them on moored ships or in walled compounds and bringing them to and from work under police protection.

Strikers attacked the stockade housing strikebreakers in San Pedro on May 15; two strikers were shot and killed by the employers’ private guards. Similar battles broke out in San Francisco and Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Strikers also succeeded in slowing down or stopping the movement of goods by rail out of the ports.

The Roosevelt administration tried again to broker a deal to end the strike, but the membership twice rejected the agreements their leadership brought to them. The employers then decided to make a show of force to reopen the port in San Francisco.

On Tuesday, July 3, fights broke out along the Embarcadero in San Francisco between police and strikers while a handful of trucks driven by young businessmen made it through the picket line.

After a quiet Fourth of July the employers’ organization, the Industrial Association, tried to open the port even further on Thursday, July 5.

As spectators watched from Rincon Hill, the police shot tear gas canisters into the crowd, then followed with a charge by mounted police. Picketers threw the canisters and rocks back at the police, who charged again, sending the picketers into retreat after a third assault. Each side then refortified and took stock.

The events took a violent turn that afternoon, as hostilities resumed outside of the ILA the kitchen. Eyewitness accounts differ on the exact events that transpired next. Some witnesses saw a group of strikers first surround a police car and attempt to tip it over, prompting the police to fire shotguns in the air, and then revolvers at the crowd.

One of the policemen then fired a shotgun into the crowd, striking three men in intersection of Steuart and Mission streets. One of the men, Howard Sperry, a striking longshoreman, later died of his wounds. Another man, Charles Olsen, was also shot but later recovered from his wounds. A third man, Nick Bordoise—an out of work cook who had been volunteering at the ILA strike kitchen—was shot but managed to make his way around the corner onto Spear Street, where he was found several hours later. Like Sperry, he died at the hospital.

Strikers immediately cordoned off the area where the two picketers had been shot, laying flowers and wreaths around it. Police arrived to remove the flowers and drive off the picketers minutes later. Once the police left, the strikers returned, replaced the flowers and stood guard over the spot. Though Sperry and Bordoise had been shot several blocks apart, this spot became synonymous with the memory of the two slain men and “Bloody Thursday.”

As strikers carried wounded picketers into the ILA union hall police fired on the hall and lobbed tear gas canisters at nearby hotels. At this point someone reportedly called the union hall to ask “Are you willing to arbitrate now?” (Source for text: wikipedia)

“An Injury to One is an Injury to All”

in SOMA on the walk to AT&T

05 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by mtk in mural, photography, S.F.

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Tags

art, AT&T, garffiti, mtk, mural, park, san francisco, sf, SOMA, south of market, street, walk

Image

in SOMA on the walk to AT&T

05 Thursday Jul 2012

Tags

art, AT&T, garffiti, mtk, mural, park, san francisco, sf, SOMA, south of market, street, walk

Posted by mtk | Filed under photography, S.F.

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trolley, San Francisco

04 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by mtk in S.F., short film, vehicles

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2012 "San Francisco (US County)" "Tram (Mass Transportation System)" "Library (Building Function)", columbus, Karthik, library, mtk, north beach, public, san francisco, sf, street, streetcar, trolley

SF Market Street in 1905 on the Big Monitor at AT&T Park

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by mtk in baseball, S.F.

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1905, AT&T, footage, giants, Market, Monitor, park, san francisco, sf, street, video

SF Market Street in 1905 on the Big Monitor at AT&T Park

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by mtk in baseball, S.F.

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1905, AT&T, footage, giants, Market, Monitor, park, san francisco, sf, street, video

Geary Street ad, San Francisco, CA

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by mtk in photography, S.F.

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Tags

2006, billboard, geary, m.t., mtk.karthik, san francisco, sf, street

Longest Day of the Year 2000

21 Wednesday Jun 2000

Posted by mtk in essay

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1997, 2000, base, celebrity, designated, larry, malle, manhattan, mourner, NYC, pine, shawn, sighting, street, towers, wall, wallace, wtc

It was a bright spring day, and I was coming out the glass doors of my office building in the central village when I suddenly felt as though I had walked into a Woody Allen movie. Through the glass of the open door, I saw playwright, actor and artist Wallace Shawn coming down the street carrying a large, heavy duffel bag containing some odd-shaped things that looked like bowling pins.

It was 1997 and I had just seen The Designated Mourner, Mike Nichols’ film of Shawn’s year-old play first performed at the Royal National Theater, London. I was so surprised I nearly struck him with the door and so he looked up and caught my eye. I paused there in the middle of the sidewalk and just stared at him and he gave me a little smile as he continued down the block.

I came to learn later that the famously private Shawn often made his way about the island on foot carrying a heavy bag – as a kind of improvisational exercise perhaps, but described in one article as an eccentricity.

I told this anecdote over and again in my New York life until the summer of 2000 when it became appended, after I read a tiny theater listing in The Village Voice:

The Designated Mourner
Wallace Shawn’s wonderfully nasty and clever drama returns to the New York stage. This three character piece examines the aftermath of a war in an unnamed country in which notions about high and low culture have murderous consequences. In this incarnation, Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg. Andre Gregory directs. 21 South William Street, 21 South William,532-8887 (Soloski)

Louis Malle, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn were at the heart of one of the most important movements in theater in New York in the latter half of the twentieth century. They took responsibility for the barbaric provincialism of the North and West more than nearly any white artists in the field and created storytelling of examined intellectual tenor.

On the summer solstice of the year 2000, I took the 6 train down to Wall Street and walked to an old, crumbly house at 21 South William, at the base of the World Trade Center Towers. I was sitting on the warm stone steps of the little house – still in sunlight on the longest day of the year – when I looked up to see a small, slowly moving figure walking toward me. It was Wallace Shawn. He wore dark clothes and a light, thin scarf around his neck that he was worrying at a little as he walked. He seemed to be in a placid, meditative, pre-performance state. I was awaiting a companion and was the only person sitting outside the small theater when he arrived.

He nodded and smiled as he approached. I stood and quickly congratulated him saying I felt The Designated Mourner was one of the most important American plays of the era. He smiled, thanked me and asked if I had a seat. I told him I hadn’t yet, but hoped to by waiting list or if not, then at another performance that summer. He said he hoped so, too and went inside.

The show was sold out and when my friend arrived we went in to add our names to the waiting list – we were numbers 7 and 8. Ten minutes before curtain the stage manager came down a set of small stairs into the foyer to announce there were 6 seats available. There was a group of three atop the waitlist and two couples ahead of us and I assumed at that moment we weren’t going to be seeing the play that night but suddenly, there was some discussion at the stage manager’s podium.

The couple ahead of us was trying to decide if they wanted to be split-up for the evening as there was only one seat left after the first five guests were seated. They took what felt like an interminably long time to decide – curtain time had passed. Finally, they agreed they would go to an early dinner rather than be split up and gave up the remaining seat. My close friend Daniel encouraged me to go take it. I paid the $10 fee and ran up the stairs toward the performance space.

The stairwell and indeed the whole house was dark save for a line of yellow electric lamps with yellow bulbs meant to guide the audience to the room in which the performance was to begin. A wonderful old and musty smell hung in the air. I followed the lights slowly until my eyes adjusted and I had some grasp of which floor they were headed toward and then ran the last flight in order to get to the performance which I was sure had begun. At the top of the stairs I nearly ran into Wallace Shawn who was standing, holding a chair and waiting.

“Oh good,” he said, “You made it.”

He carried the chair to a place at the edge of the audience, set it down, gestured for me to sit and then made his way to the carefully lit back of the room that was the performance area. There was no stage between audience and performer, just a subtle line on the floor, created from where the chairs ended and the lighting began.

Shawn then turned and faced the audience. The lights were dimmed quickly and he struck a match and lit a small piece of paper on fire which floated as it turned into ash, slowly up to the ceiling, “I” he recited, “am the designated mourner.”

NYC crickets, Queens, North Front Street, 1997

29 Friday Aug 1997

Posted by mtk in audio, conceptual art, NYC

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Tags

1997, august, crickets, front, Karthik, m.t., mtk, new york, north, ny, queens, street, summer

recorded these crickets at the end of summer, August 29th, upon my arrival to New York City.

M.T. Karthik

This blog archives early work of M.T. Karthik, who took every photograph and shot all the video here unless otherwise credited.

Performances and installations are posted by date of execution.

Writing appears in whatever form it was originally or, as in the case of poems or journal entries, retyped faithfully from print.

all of it is © M.T. Karthik

a minute of rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYLHNRS8ik4

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