Lauren Edelstein, a New York-based artist, presents HAVE A NICE DAY 🙂, a collection inspired by the everyday objects of the iconic New York City bodega, reconstructed from thousands of meticulously arranged emojis. A crumpled Cheetos bag, a Magnum condom wrapper, a Diet Coke can, a plastic shopping bag, and New York’s ubiquitous blue-and-white coffee cups are rendered in thousands of emojis, lending them an entirely new visual language.
What first appears to be familiar packaging reveals itself, up close, as thousands of tiny symbols, visual puns, and unexpected details. Cheese wedges, toilet paper, dollar signs, fortune cookies, cigarettes, and bagels build color, texture, typography, light, and shadow. The closer you look, the more there is to find.
The exhibition’s centerpiece, If You Can Make It There..., reimagines photographer Pelle Cass’s 2022 New York Magazine “Reasons to Love New York” cover. Julia Fox, Paul Rudd, Spike Lee, Ziwe, and dozens of other iconic New Yorkers are constructed through Edelstein’s signature technique, where lizards and oranges form the base of an extravagant statement coat and pigeons built from brains, knives, and koala heads fly through the streets.
Playful from afar and obsessive up close, HAVE A NICE DAY 🙂 finds humor in the everyday, turning the visual clutter of New York into something worth getting lost in.
