" There are places that don't belong to geography but time."

Saul Steinberg Hitchhiker
in "Carry Me Back"
at the
"Games Show NYC" in the Macy Gallery at the Teacher's College of Columbia University

The Hitchhiker of Saul Steinberg is constructed of light-weight reinforced  plywood held upright by a collapsible prop. Its current location is displayed on the map above. Clicking on the animated figure will display the time the location was reported.  A note on its back requests passers-by to become a Player by transporting it in sequence to one of five places to qualify for a 1/7th share in the artwork.
The five destinations are:
  •        A place with a view of the Statue of  Liberty
  •        Anywhere on Ninth Ave.
  •        The Empire State Building on 44th St near 5th Ave
  •        His last residence at 103 East 75th St.
  •         When all the places have been visited in the order listed or by May 24 whichever come first, the sculpture must be taken to Macy Gallery, 444 Macy Building, 525 West 120th Street.
The note also tells Players how to register for their share in the artwork.
 The artwork will be set out on a random street corner on May 14.
.Saul Steinberg was born in Rāmnicul Sărat, Romania. He studied philosophy for a year at the University of Bucharest, then later enrolled at the Politecnico di Milano, studying architecture and graduating in 1940. During his years in Milan he was actively involved in the humor newspaper Bertoldo.  He left Italy after the introduction of anti-Semitic laws by the Fascist government.  He spent a year in the Dominican Republic awaiting a U.S. visa; in the meantime, he submitted his cartoons to foreign publications. In 1942, The New Yorker magazine  helped sponsor his entry into the United States, and thus began Steinberg's lifelong relationship with this publication. Through well over half a century working with The New Yorker, Steinberg created nearly 90 covers and more than 1,200 drawings.
During World War II, he worked for military intelligence, stationed in China, North Africa, and Italy. After the war's end, he returned to work for American periodicals, but also began an active career in gallery and museum exhibitions around the world.   He married Romanian born abstract expressionist painter Hedda Sterne in 1944. In 1946, Steinberg, along with artists such as Arshile Gorky, Isamu Noguchi, and Robert Motherwell, was exhibited in the critically acclaimed "Fourteen Americans" show at The Museum of Modern Art. The most recent retrospective of his art, organized by the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, opened in 2006 and made an eight-stop tour in the US and Europe.
For more information visit the Saul Steinberg Foundation 



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Travelogue 

Mid March, 2011: Lenni, Saul and Thelonious appear on earth, open up email accounts and create Facebook pages for themselves.

April 12 - Thelonious has 78 "friends."  Lenni has 113.  Saul: 88.  They are frequently harassed by Facebook robots who suspect something fishy is going on.

April 22 - Thelonious, Saul and Lenni  reveal their true nature on Facebook.

May 10.  Monk's, Lenni's and Saul's tracker units were disconnected and they were hustled into a large van by driver Big Danny which disappeared down the road.

May 11-  We are stopped in the dark and cold.  Somewhere in eastern Ohio.  This is worse than smuggling out of 1930's Romania.

May 14 -  Saul is dropped off at Washington Market Park

Saul and Adam. This is not the first time Saul been behind iron bars.

Copyright © Jim Pallas 2011