Cool Stuff: The Pop Culture Vision Of New York City On Display At Brooklyn Art Show

Destroying New York in movies has become so cliché. Many major disaster movies — from King Kong to The Avengers –  features some kind of massive, cataclysmic event taking place in the city. For some people around the world, these big screen visions of the Big Apple are all they know about NYC. That cultural disconnect is the idea behind the latest pop culture art show at the Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn, NY

The Popular Face of New York is a solo show by UK artist Chris Thornley aka Raid71. He's created a wide range of screenprints inspired by New York movies, from the destructive (Independence Day, King Kong, Ghostbusters) to the romantic (Woody Allen) and the criminal (Martin Scorsese, The King of New York). It's a though-provoking, and fun, glimpse at an outsiders perspective on one of the most filmed cites in the world.

The show opens March 15 and runs through March 29. Check out some images below.

The Popular Face of New York opens at 7 p.m. March 15 and will remain open through March 29. It's located at 60 Broadway, Brooklyn. Find more information at www.bottleneckgallery.com, and that's also where the show will go on sale online at noon EST on March 16 at that link.

You can also see some process shots of several of these images at the Bottleneck Blog. Very cool stuff.

And again, prints will first be on sale at the opening and then online at noon March 15. Follow @bottlenecknyc for the info. And for more on Raid71, visit his site. Here's his artist statement about the show:

Pop culture profoundly influences the identities of not only its consumers, but also its real world reference.

The curate's egg that is globalisation has scattered a billion Brooklyns, Bronxes and Manhattans around the world. Each one is selectively shot, sung or drawn with an agenda. When the world sees Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks finally meet at the top of the Empire State Building with Manhattan spread out before them like a celestial banquet, the city becomes as synonymous with romance as Belle Époque Paris; when Kong climbs the same building to meet his tragic fate, the city becomes a jungle in which the astounding and the unique are forever doomed to be reduced to bloody spectacle; when Patrick Bateman wends his sanguinary way through the antiseptic warrens of Wall Street, the city becomes an icy skullscape where weakness is punishable by death.

With the exhibition 'The Popular Face of New York', I present an outsider's perspective on a city. For me, this is Scorsese's city

– an abyss of vice, drugs and crime which echoes with the sound of ricocheting bullets; it is Woody Allen's city of introspection, ennui and sexual paranoia; it is the only city in the world strong enough to survive a million celluloid obliterations; it is a postmodern diorama in which Top Cat and Vito Corleone can coexist on the same block.