sidewalk Format: Hardback

In April 2020, when New York was in lockdown and the epicentre of the pandemic, Renate Aller created the project side walk. She hosted friends and neighbors on her sidewalk or visited them in their street, her camera in self timer mode, recording these masked encounters at a safe 6 feet distance. With voices muted by masks we learn to communicate with our eyes and body language, finding our bearings in a new emotional landscape. These sidewalk visits created a deep sense of community where community had been forced apart. This project is in the spirit of Rainer Maria Rilke: »[…] that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other«. German born artist Renate Aller lives in New York and her art work is held in numerous museums.

Born in Germany, Renate Aller lives and works in New York. Her works are in the collections of corporate institutions, private collectors and museums, including Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, N.M., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Yale University Art Gallery, CT, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, New Britain Museum of American Art, CT, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY, New York Historical Society Museum, New York, NY, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle, Switzerland

Marilyn S. Kushner is the Curator and Head, Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections at the New-York Historical Society since 2006. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Northwestern University and has previously worked at the Whitney Museum as a Research Assistant, the Montclair Art Museum where she was Curator of Collections, and the Brooklyn Museum where she was Chair of the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs.

Lara Pan is a independent cuartor in NYC.