"Five Cents a Spot," photo by Jacob A. Riis, ca. 1890 Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis
Although I believe most of my readers prefer the esthetic to the documentary, I don’t automatically tune out when politics in art rears its ugly head. Case in point: I belatedly found absorbing “Jacob A. Riis: Revealing New York’s Other Half” at the Museum of the City of New York (through March 20, then at the Library of Congress in Washington, April 14 to September 5, and thereafter at Danish museums in Copenhagen and Ribe, Riis’s birthplace). Read More