As various politicians promise that the “summer of New York” is upon us, the city is indeed heating up. One of its buzziest goings-on at the moment is the new Sanford Biggers installation at Rockefeller Center. Arranged by the nonprofit Art Production Fund, in partnership with Marianne Boesky Gallery, it includes a dizzying and thrilling amount of Biggers’s work, including Oracle, a 25-foot-high bronze that is the latest addition to Biggers’s Chimera series, which combines African masks with European figures. Biggers, who grew up in Los Angeles, now lives and works in New York City, and has made headlines for his layered interpretations of oft-overlooked narratives throughout American history. In 2020, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 2021 he was honored by the Savannah College of Art and Design at its deFINE ART exhibition-and-event series. “Codeswitch,” his solo exhibition, was on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts this spring. As he prepares to take center stage in one of America’s most beloved public spaces, he reveals his key components to the good life. —Ashley Baker
Airline, domestic: JetBlue Mint.
Airline, international: Lufthansa, in first class.
Airport: Singapore Changi.
App: Audm.
Beach: Es Trenc, in Majorca.
Bedtime: Sleep?
Breakfast, weekday: Steel-cut oatmeal, espresso, freshly squeezed orange juice.
Breakfast, weekend: A cheddar-and-onion omelette, espresso, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a Bloody Maria (optional).
Car: A Jaguar E-Type.
ChildREN: Avery-Luna and Loring Biggers.
Cocktail: A rye Manhattan with chocolate bitters.
Cocktail appetizer: Guacamole.
Couple: Mom and Dad.
Disguise: Moon Medicin.
Dress: Diane von Furstenberg.
Drive: The West Side Highway, in New York.
Enemy: Public.
Expression: “It takes dough to make bread.”
Foil: The rake.
Good-bye:
Irish.
Hideaway: Manhattan Beach.
Hotel: Komaneka, in Ubud.
Jacket: Vivienne Westwood trench coat.
Last meal: Rib-eye steak.
Mentors: My mother and father.
Neighbors: Dick and Jane. Really!
Nonfiction book: The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Piece of advice: “Say less, listen more.”
Podcast: Disgraceland.
Singer: Prince.
Storm: Thunder.
Television series: Ozark.
Theme song to your life: “A Love Bizarre.”
Time of day: From two to six a.m.
Toast: “To nights we’ll never remember, with friends we’ll never forget.”
Sanford’s Essentials
