The Hudson Yards Staircase, also known as “Vessel”, is a giant, visitable, sculpted labyrinth, 15 meters wide and 46 meters high, that can contemporarily host 1000 visitors, who want to take 2.500 steps and to face 154 flights of stairs (16 levels, 80 climbs), in order to enjoy breathtaking landscapes of Manhattan and of the Hudson River. Its story starts in the year 2013, and is inclusive of 4 suicides, plus structural interventions for disabled persons (dedicated elevators), and for preventing further suicides. The sculpture, whose total cost was about 200 million $, has been reopened on October 28, 2024, after a “definitive” closure on July 29, 2021. I omit many information and criticisms, because everything is easily findable on the web. However, I care to underline two nicknames, “Chalice of the Privileged”, and “Staircase to Nowhere”. I also add that the source of inspiration of the project is ancient Indian stepwells, and that the company who owns the architectural attraction has wanted to obtain a sort of 12-month Christmas tree. Among many qualified comments, I cite the one who compares Thomas Heatherwick, the designer of the Hudson Yards Staircase, to the Dutch artist M.C. Escher, popular for creating extravagant staircases, entangled and leading to nowhere.
Apart from criticisms, it’s undeniable that the Hudson Yards Staircase represents one of the best-known works of contemporary fine arts. For that, I would like to offer some observations, whose purpose is the identification of some of the features of nowadays fine arts. My starting point is a deepening of the nicknames cited above. From the derogatory expression “Chalice of the Privileged”, you might deduce that the work is considered as a superficial exaltation of consumerism, and a tribute to the insane vacuity of bourgeois lifestyle. Well, I can’t deny that the Hudson Yards Staircase is born to valorize the municipal High Line Park, and, indirectly but evidently, the Chelsea Market. Nevertheless, all the works of ancient fine arts are born to valorize, or even to adulate, powerful persons. The problem is that professional artists, including the best and most appreciated, need money just like you do. To the other side, the privileged have got money enough for gaining pills of immortality, under the shape of a sculpture, or a painting, and so on. From the other derogatory definition “Staircase to Nowhere”, you might deduce that the notable, physical efforts, required to the visitors of the structure, are not worth to be done. You might agree or not about the beauty of the Hudson Yards Staicase, however there are two new, important praxes: inserting a work of fine arts into a precise, and coordinated urban context; transforming a work of fine arts into something that doesn’t ends with a simple sight, and that can be truly experienced by the visitors.
Before coming to the conclusion, I offer my answer to the question whether proletarian fine arts exists or not. I fear that for receiving amusement from something ephemeral, intended as not bound to primary body functions, you need time and money to spend, and an absence of compelling necessities. Differently, reggae music is universally recognized as the sound of the struggles of the poor. Despite, I’ve never seen a poor person listening to commercial records, even if some poor might become street players. Thus, the conclusion has become rather obvious, and equal to the title of the page. According to that, the mix of the page is made of reggae music, although not entirely coming from Jamaica, and without political intentions.
File name is “artistic expressions in a reggae container, by Max Look DJ (Jan 2025)”, about 1 hour and 22’of notable reggae dances from 85 to 88 BPM.
Stylish reggae, the playlist:
FREDDIE MC GREGOR - JUST DON'T WANT TO BE LONELY
ETHIOPIANS - THE WHIP
LOU THOMM - GREEN, GREEN GRASS OF HOME
MAX ROMEO - ISRAELITES
CLINT EASTWOOD & GENERAL SAINT - STOP THAT TRAIN 12"
NINJAMAN - NUMBER ONE
SHABBA RANKS - PIRATES ANTHEM
MADRAK FEAT DEVON RUSSELL - SOCIAL LIVING
SLY & ROBBIE - PARTY TOGETHER
RICHARD ACE - IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU
PLUTO SHERVINGTON - DAT
HOOTERS - ALL YOU ZOMBIES
DAVID BYRNE - GIRLS ON MY MIND
SENSASCIOU - IN SCIO BLEU
ALPHA BLONDY - BRIGADIER SABARI
CHUBBY CHECKER - LIMBO ROCK
DERRICK MORGAN - SOME WOMAN MUST CRY
YELLOWMAN - FANTASTIC YELLOWMAN
BURNING SPEAR - HOLY DUB
SEAN PAUL FT SASHA - I'M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU
ARTHUR ALEXANDER - EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEONE TO LOVE
BITTY MC LEAN - DEDICATED TO THE ONE I LOVE
GARLAND JEFFREYS - MATADOR
PITURA FRESKA - LIBERA SION
