British artist Lucy Sparrow is pictured at her “Feltz Bagels” installation on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, in New York. Opening Tuesday, the installation uses approximately 30,000 pieces of felt to recreate the look and feel of the authentic Jewish bagel shops prominent in New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood. It runs through October.
Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
While not one of the major food groups, a bagel and a schmear made of felt might satisfy your appetite for art.
“Feltz Bagels,” the latest installation from British artist Lucy Sparrow, uses approximately 30,000 pieces of felt to recreate the look and feel of the authentic Jewish bagel shops prominent in New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood.
Sparrow says she wanted to depict how this breakfast food brought here by Eastern European immigrants in the late 19th century “morphed into New York society” and beyond, making the bagel the Swiss Army knife of breads. Cream cheese, butter, cold cuts, lox — anything that fits on the circular bread is fair game, Sparrow felt.
Taking over an abandoned storefront in the East Village, Sparrow’s pop-up shop runs from Tuesday through the end of October, offering a step back in time and the ambience of a real New York bagel shop.
Adding a dose of reality, Sparrow works the counter, taking orders for the bagel of your dreams — or your regular order, if you’re so inclined. The custom bagel sells for $250, and pricing for other items starts at $10.
“It’s the bagel that you order in real life, but I sew it together for you,” Sparrow said. “We have everything here from six different types of bagels, 44 different types of fillings. So, the possibilities are endless with what you can create in the art world out of felt food.”
This isn’t the first time Sparrow has converted classic New York installations into felt: She previously tackled a 1980s bodega in “8 Till Late,” and a delicatessen with “Lucy’s on 6th.” Like the…
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