In the “Loiter” series, David L. Johnson @david_johnso de-contextualizes the hostile architecture, exclusionary designs created on the built environment, surrounding nearby standpipes, extracting them directly and repurposing them as sculptures.
David L. Johnson is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Johnson‘s work focuses on the urban built environment, pinpointing moments of slippage between public and private property. His practice uses photography, video, found and stolen objects, and installation to examine the politics, histories, aesthetics, and forms of use that define contemporary urban space.
Through this act of guerilla intervention, Johnson spotlights the violence and severity of such designs, created to prevent people from sitting or otherwise occupying a space. The artist’s contribution simultaneously exists in public space through the absence of the hostile architecture, providing a material outcome via their removal.
Courtesy Fanta-MLN, Milan, Theta New York
@fanta_mln@theta.nyc
Installation shots @ccinstar
Meet our 2026 New York City Artadia Awards Finalist!
David L. Johnson’s work focuses on the ongoing effects of privatization, real estate development, and policing on public life in cities. Working across photography, video, found and stolen objects, and sound, Johnson uses direct forms of intervention to engage the politics, histories, and forms of use that define contemporary urban space. Through subtractive gestures, including the removal of hostile architecture, property markers, and surveillance devices, his work traces the material and legal conditions of these sites, producing moments of slippage between public and private property.
Johnson (b. 1993, New York, NY) received a BFA from The Cooper Union in 2015 and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. He is an alumnus of the Whitney Independent Study Program and a part-time faculty member in the Fine Arts MFA program at Parsons School of Design. His work has been exhibited at the 2026 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago; and MoMA PS1, New York.
Headshot photo courtesy of the artist.
No lying down
No pitching tents
No amplified sound
No annoying behavior
@david_johnso ’s #WhitneyBiennial work Rule consists of the removal of code-of-conduct signs from privately owned public spaces (POPS).
POPS emerged in New York in 1961 following a zoning resolution that permitted private developers to construct taller buildings in exchange for creating nearby park-like spaces for public use. The private owners who control these spaces often set rules that are much more restrictive than those governing city parks and other public places. The use of these code-of-conduct signs also intensified after Occupy Wall Street’s takeover of Zucotti Park in the fall of 2011.
Rule is on view now through August 23 in the Biennial. Link in bio to listen to Johnson’s full audio guide stop for this work.
Loiter (David, Robert, Jeffrey), 2023 by David L. Johnson on view in, as a matter of fact / de hecho y de materia.
Opening
Friday, February 6th
7:00 - 10:00 PM
David L. Johnson (@david_johnso )
Loiter (David, Robert, Jeffrey), 2023
Removed standpipe spike
41 × 21 × 18 cm
16 × 8 1/6 × 7 in.
Hanged at the original height from which they were removed, David L. Johnson’s freshly extracted spiky metal structures constitute an in situ positive of their absence. These city fixtures, normally installed by property owners on standpipes, windowsills, and other surfaces, are intended to prevent sitting, gathering, or loitering. Johnson’s practice investigates the intersections of urban space, social control, and perception, revealing how the materiality of the city encodes systems of power and restriction. - Tiffany Dornoy Rezaei
Courtesy of the Artist & Theta, New York
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#THIRDBORN #mexicoartweek
Leoncavallo, 2025
Playlist
In Milan, the privatization of public space has accelerated. Public-private partnerships, such as Apple’s redevelopment of Piazza del Liberty, have expanded the presence of privately managed piazza space. At the same time, autonomous cultural spaces have faced growing pressure, intensified by anti-rave and anti-squatting laws. Leoncavallo, one of Milan’s longest-standing autonomous social centers (founded in 1975), was evicted from its Via Antoine Watteau site this past summer. During Rule, archival Italian dub and reggae recordings by DJ Vitowar—made at Leoncavallo’s original location on Via Leoncavallo 22—will be streamed on the gallery’s website.
Liberty, 2025
Slideshow, 22:00 minutes
Piazza Liberty sits at the center of Milan’s commercial district, adjacent to Via Monte Napoleone, one of the world’s most expensive streets. Built after an Allied bombardment in 1943, the piazza functioned as both a public space and the site of the Apollo Spazio Cinema, a subterranean cinema that opened in 1959 and remained a cultural landmark for decades.
In 2012, the municipality pedestrianized the piazza to make it more accessible as a public gathering space. Soon after, Apple began negotiations with the city to purchase both the cinema and the surrounding land. Despite protests from staff and cultural groups over the lack of community input, Apollo closed after 58 years.
In 2017, Apple began its redevelopment of the site, commissioning Norman Foster to design a new flagship store in the center of the piazza. Piazza Liberty officially reopened in 2018 as an “Apple town square.”With the presence of the store, Piazza Liberty follows a growing trend of privately governed piazza spaces in Milan that have been produced through public-private partnerships.
Open @fanta_mln
