Corgis for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Photos by Smita Daryanani

This year marks seventy years since Queen Elizabeth II took the throne, making her the first British Monarch in history to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. The Jubilee celebrations, will include many events across the country including the Trooping of the Color followed by a Flypast, the Derby at Epsom Downs, Platinum Jubilee Beacons, a party at Buckingham palace, street parties all over the country, and a Pageant on Sunday to end the weekend. As part of the celebrations, and given the Queen’s love of corgis, a trail of larger-than-life corgi statues has been set up in London. Nineteen statues, each designed and decorated by a different contemporary artist, are eye-catching additions to the streets of central London around Buckingham Palace.

Grand Central Concourse

Opened in 1913, Grand Central Terminal is a gorgeous example of the Beaux-Arts architectural style, blending modern efficiency with ornate and impressive detail. The Main Concourse is one of the most recognizable spaces in New York City, particularly because of the famous mural on the ceiling, which features the night sky complete with several constellations. The mural was originally painted directly on the plaster ceiling of the Main Concourse, with detailed artistic depictions of several of the zodiac signs, including Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries, Pisces, and Aquarius, along with Orion, Pegasus, and a few lesser-known constellations. Unfortunately, a leaky roof mostly destroyed the original mural within the first few decades after it was painted, so the roof was “restored” in the 1940s. However, when the new ceiling was unveiled, the original mural had not been restored at all, merely covered up with large boards. A new mural was painted, with a few puzzling changes, including much-simplified images. The new mural retained a major error in the original – the mural was painted backwards, with east and west reversed. The original mural is probably long-gone behind the boards and their “restoration,” but the Main Concourse is still an impressive sight to behold.

George Rickey on the Highline

One of the most influential American sculptors of the twentieth century, George Rickey spent much of his long career fascinated with the movements of the wind. He was captivated by “the waving of branches and the trembling of stems, the piling up or scudding of clouds, the rising and setting and waxing and waning of heavenly bodies.” His most famous sculptures reflect this preoccupation with movement. Rickey developed a distinct style of kinetic sculptures: simple, large-scale forms that were carefully balanced and calibrated to move with the slightest breeze. Several of these simple, gently moving pieces are currently on view at Kasmin Gallery’s rooftop sculpture garden in Chelsea, viewable from the High Line. The three works visible there, Five Lines in Parallel Planes, Peristyle II, and Two Red Lines, are all made up of elegant steel spikes, precisely balanced to sway and dip with the movements of the air. All created in the 1960s and 1970s, these pieces are emblematic of the sculptor’s signature style.