New York has one of the richest art museum ecosystems in the world, with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum all located within the same borough—and that’s to say nothing of the Brooklyn Museum, the Queens Museum, the Bronx Museum, and many other institutions that make this city’s art world go round.
But according to Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s Mayor-elect, the best museum is none of these. Instead, it’s “our subway system,” as he told the New York Times this week.
Related Articles
Yes, the MTA’s transit system has a “crumbling” infrastructure, as he put it, and yes, there are seemingly more subway issues than ever. But there are also “beautiful murals and pieces of art across our subway system,” he told the Times. He praised the MTA for offering “the fulfillment of art as being something for the public to engage with, no matter how much money is in their pocket.”
He was referring to the host of public artworks viewable with the swipe of an OMNY card (RIP MetroCards), including pieces by Vito Acconci, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono, Faith Ringgold, Jeffrey Gibson, and others that are housed in subway stations.
Perhaps you consider that answer a cop-out? Mamdani did hint that he’s interested in other institutions that are, well, actual museums. He said he wants to visit the Museum of the Moving Image, an institution in his current neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, that is now hosting a show about the “Mission: Impossible” series. (Mamdani, who will soon depart Astoria to take up residence in Gracie Mansion, said he has “spent months” trying to make his way through all the “Mission: Impossible” films.)
He also suggested that he was interested in art in the more traditional sense, thanks in large part to his wife Rama Duwaji, an illustrator who regularly posts to her Instagram about artists who inspire her.
“I’m so lucky to be married to my wife,” Mamdani told the Times. “The way that she sees the world and how she sees beauty, it’s expanded my sense of art as not just something you see in a museum or on a screen or in a kind of formal setting, but also part of the everyday.”
