Keeping a Safe Distance with Ruben Natal-San Miguel

Written By Roman Kalinovski

For Ruben Natal-San Miguel, a photographer based in Harlem, the coronavirus pandemic couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. Cases of the disease in New York started increasing exponentially right before the opening of his solo show at Postmasters Gallery, Women R Beautiful, and the reception had to be cancelled due to social distancing guidelines.

In response to this, Natal-San Miguel set out to capture images of how this new phenomenon has affected New York. The photographs in his Safe Distance series were shot while maintaining the suggested distance of at least six to eight feet apart from other people. Not that it was difficult to do so in most places: Natal-San Miguel’s cityscapes show a version of New York suddenly devoid of life and activity, with parks and storefronts standing ready for patrons who won’t show up. Given the extent of the pandemic, especially with New York’s hospitals now overflowing with new coronavirus cases, their absence is for the better.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Savage & Ruthless, Times Square Station 42nd Street Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Savage & Ruthless, Times Square Station 42nd Street Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, If You See Something, Say Something (Times Square Cops), Times Square, Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, If You See Something, Say Something (Times Square Cops), Times Square, Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Don’t Be Afraid of Anyone, Times Square, Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Don’t Be Afraid of Anyone, Times Square, Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Times Square, 42nd Street Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Times Square, 42nd Street Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Radio City Music Hall, Midtown Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Radio City Music Hall, Midtown Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Tiffany & Co., Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Tiffany & Co., Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Plaza Hotel Park (Fifth Avenue), Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Plaza Hotel Park (Fifth Avenue), Manhattan, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Restaurant, East Harlem, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Restaurant, East Harlem, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Barawine Restaurant, Harlem, NYC, 2020.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Barawine Restaurant, Harlem, NYC, 2020.

Related Articles
Seeking the Digital at PHOTOFAIRS
Seeking the Digital at PHOTOFAIRS

The inaugural edition of PHOTOFAIRS New York, a new contemporary art fair dedicated to photo-based works, digital art, and new media, took place on Manhattan’s West Side. Three galleries — Postmasters, bitforms, and Von Lintel Gallery — exhibited works that pushed the boundaries of lens-based media with a focus on the digital.

Read More →
New Faces and Voices at SPRING/BREAK 2023
New Faces and Voices at SPRING/BREAK 2023

For the art fair’s latest iteration, SPRING/BREAK Art Show has returned to its past. Rather than introducing a new theme this year, applicants were able to choose from the fair’s previous themes for their curatorial projects. While one could imagine that such a setup might result in a rehash of past fairs, this year’s SPRING/BREAK is anything but ossified. Alongside many familiar faces are projects by artists and curators making their SPRING/BREAK debuts.

Read More →
Between Digital and Analog
Between Digital and Analog

Seungjin Lee is an artist and performer who makes work based around a concept that he calls DigiAna: art that embraces both digital and analog processes. Roman Kalinovski, senior editor of Arcade Project, sat down with Lee to discuss the nature and origins of his DigiAna concept and how his artwork expresses this vision of digital and analog synthesis.

Read More →
The Decadent World of Daniel Giordano
The Decadent World of Daniel Giordano

Artist Daniel Giordano, based upstate in Newburgh, has three overlapping solo exhibitions: JDJ Gallery in TriBeCa, Turley Gallery in Hudson, and MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. Each show offers a different perspective on Giordano’s diverse and materially complex oeuvre, featuring bodies of work that draw from the artist’s life and surroundings while allowing each piece to take on a life and meaning of its own.

Read More →
By Forces Unseen
By Forces Unseen

Both artists in Sapovnela at 11 Newel Gallery – curated by Tessa Krieg – mobilize the unseen and uncontrollable in creating their work. Leila Spilman uses natural decay and supposedly supernatural electrophotography to make prints of great material and historical complexity. Ryan DaWalt harnesses magnetism and ultraviolet light, resulting in paintings that glow and wire sculptures held in tense equilibrium by unseen forces.

Read More →
Polychrome Presences
Polychrome Presences

In addition to showcasing a variety of approaches to color in sculpture, I would argue that there is another undercurrent running through this exhibition. Much of the work either responds to or actively attempts to undermine classical and modern aesthetics' mathematical purity.

Read More →
Underbelly of the Beast
Underbelly of the Beast

Kat Ryals and Kate Stone once described their two-person exhibition at Ortega y Gasset, Swallowed into the Soft Underbelly, as theme park meets haunted house. The intoxication of excess cannot permanently hide the creeping decay in our interiors.

Read More →
Three Physical Digital Art Exhibitions in New York
Three Physical Digital Art Exhibitions in New York

The art world can’t stop talking about digital art right now, following Christies’s infamous auction of NFTs that saw a glorified certificate of authenticity sell for $69 million. Digital art, however, has a long history and isn’t necessarily associated with crypto technology like NFTs. Three shows up now in New York pay homage to digital art’s place in the historical canon and offer a variety of approaches to displaying it in a gallery setting, occupying physical space as well as virtual reality.

Read More →
The Revival of NO BODY
The Revival of NO BODY

Galerie Manqué has relaunched with a revival of NO BODY, a four-person group show that examines the fragmentation and technological augmentation of the human body.

Read More →
Neon Genesis Evangelion's Apocalyptic Psychology
Neon Genesis Evangelion's Apocalyptic Psychology

Neon Genesis Evangelion presents itself as a giant robot anime, but action loses its centrality as the series progresses. Minus the tropes of the genre, Evangelion presents a story of how dysfunctional individuals try (and fail) to live their lives while facing a mounting unavoidable catastrophe.

Read More →
Roman Kalinovski

Roman Kalinovski is the senior editor of Arcade Project and associate director of Arcade Project Curatorial as well as an artist and critic living and working in Brooklyn. Originally from Syracuse, NY, he received his BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA from Pratt Institute. His artwork and other writing can be found on his website.

Instagram: @kalinova828

Twitter: @kalinova828

http://www.romankalinovski.com
Previous

Artist Instagrams to Watch During Quarantine
Next

The Governed Body