NADA House 2023

“Ilana Halperin’s ‘Minerals of New York’ is at once a history of a city, a portrayal of the deep geological past, and a self-portrait (of sorts). It is made up of multiple elements that constellate around Halperin’s fascination with mineral treasures that were uncovered as the infrastructure of modern New York was dug out beneath the streets of Manhattan, her childhood home.” - Dr Dominic Paterson, Curator of Contemporary Art, The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

We are delighted to be bringing this significant body of work to NADA House on Governors Island.

The project is inspired by an encounter with the New York Subway Garnet, a huge historic mineral found by laborers in 1885 on 35th Street and Broadway, when they were excavating the sewage system. This led the artist into the stores of the American Museum of Natural History NY, which led to a bungalow in Queens. Here Halperin met a 96 year old man who had started his collection of minerals as a boy, a member of the Pick and Hammer Club with the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. From there Halperin encountered a piece of Garnetiferous Gneiss, found 150 feet below the street where she grew up. The project has evolved into a mineral biography of the city of New York; a significant body of work, combining drawings, personal narrative and geological urban wonder.

The work has been shown at two solo exhibitions at Leeds Arts University and The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow and is now returning back to its birthplace, in New York.