In This Issue...

• Roxy Paine De-installation

Primehouse New York Supports Mad. Sq. Park

Mad. Sq. Art 2008 - Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied

News from the Shake Shack

Winter in the Park

Roxy Paine De-installation

Primehouse New York Supports Mad. Sq. Park

Dine with Primehouse New York and help beautify Madison Square Park!

Visit Primehouse New York for lunch or brunch during the month of March, 7 days a week, and after you enjoy such midday favorites as the Chicken Cobb, the Steakhouse Burger, and the Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes, you can round up your bill to make donations to the Madison Square Park Conservancy (www.madisonsquarepark.org), the not-for-profit organization dedicated to keeping historic Madison Square Park a bright, beautiful and active public park.

Primehouse New York will show our commitment by matching up to $10,000 of donations made by Primehouse New York guests during lunch or brunch in March. Together we will directly help in making Madison Square Park greener with more plants and new landscaping.

So start eating, and leave the planting to us!

Primehouse New York
381 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016
212-824-2600

Mad. Sq. Art 2008 - Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied

Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied

Mad. Sq. Art 2008
Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied
Online Newspapers: New York Edition
March 20 - April 27

Beginning March 20, the Madison Square Park Conservancy begins its 2008 season with Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied’s Online Newspapers: New York Edition, an Internet-based installation created from front pages of four local daily newspapers—the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post and New York Daily News—to be shown daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on four outdoor video screens on the grounds of the Shake Shack.

On view in Madison Square Park are digitized front pages from four of New York’s most read and revered newspapers—the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post and New York Daily News. However, these pages are not the online versions we have become accustomed to but scanned versions of the printed page, illuminated by seemingly incongruous low-res, glittery, and jittery graphics.

Since its beginnings, the World Wide Web has been a source for global news and opinion. In the early days hobbyists and amateur journalists harnessed the new technology to disseminate personal opinion and narratives. Yet the Web quickly became home to major media outlets and corporations who present information with a standardized aesthetic that echoes their print newspapers. With this corporate takeover, the myriad quirky graphic styles that defined the homegrown aesthetic of the Internet’s beginnings, such as brightly colored animated gifs and sparkling clip art, were quickly subsumed by the work of professional web designers and usability experts.

For Online Newspapers: New York Edition, artists Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied revive the amateur aesthetic by pairing it with the content of the mainstream press; they imagine how news sites would appear were they developed by the lay journalists whose aesthetic choices defined Web culture before the dot-com boom. By applying this aesthetic to a particular cross section of New York City papers, the artists subtly point to the qualitative assumptions we make about information we read and the significant role design plays in these impressions. Creating a faux precedent to today’s Web news, Online Newspapers also alludes to the perpetual obsolescence of technology and style—a major factor in our ever-changing media landscape.

About the Artists
Russian-born artist Olia Lialina currently teaches at the Merz Academie in Germany. Originally a film critic, for the past decade she has produced influential works of network-based art and art criticism. Dragan Espenschied, born in Germany, has received international acclaim for his online art and music, and is a lecturer at the Merz Academie in Germany. Individually and as collaborative partners, the work of both artists has been exhibited extensively online and at venues including Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; Deitch Projects, New York; the New Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany.

News from the Shake Shack

Shake Shack covered in snow

Extended Hours
Beginning Thursday, March 6, the Shake Shack will be extending its hours to be open from 11:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. Not only will you be able to enjoy your burger under heaters, but you will also be able to visit later in the evening for a sweet treat!

Winter Treat
On the coldest day yet in New York, we headed down to the Shake Shack to enjoy their Hot Chocolate. This is not any old, run-of-the-mill, hot chocolate. No - theirs is made with 72% Vahlrona chocolate, cream, and topped off with homemade toffee marshmallows. Need we say more? It was sinfully delicious and utterly decadent. And just to tease us more, they now serve a Hot Vanilla. This may be the first time we’ve said this: We hope it stays chilly in New York long enough for us to order another.

The Shack Burger

The Burger Boys from Mad. Sq. Park Compete in South Beach
On February 21, in the warm sun of Miami, Shake Shack burgers made an appearance at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Eighteen restaurants from around the country competed in the Burger Bash, the kick-off event hosted by Rachael Ray. Shake Shack placed second, missing first place by only 5 votes. We wish we had been there to cheer them on (and escape the cold weather in New York)!

Winter in the Park