Ai Weiwei’s landmark public art project Good Fences Make Good Neighbors has opened in New York, with massive fence sculptures erected across New York. “New York is a city I spent 10 years in,” Ai says of his history with the city. “I was quite hesitant [to do a project here] because I love [New York] so much, it’s not easy for me to just put a simple sculpture in the city … I had to do something to pay back my respect, my love.”
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Alex Katz has provided the illustration for the 50th anniversary issue of New York Magazine, drawing a series of subway riders in a stripped down approach. “Alex Katz made drawings of people on the subway in the 1940s when he was a student on his way to Cooper Union,” says Magazine photography director Jody Quon. “We wanted to see if he would revisit the experience of doing the subway drawings.” 
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Citing an “anti-Israel bias,” the United States will withdraw from Unesco, the United Nations cultural organization, the New York Times reports. “Universality is critical to Unesco’s mission to strengthen international peace and security in the face of hatred and violence, to defend human rights and dignity,” says Unesco director Irina Bokova.
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