Hidden Stars of Washington Square
David Drebin steps out from behind the camera to find the talent New Yorkers keep to themselves
New York is full of stars you have never heard of. Some are about to step forward.
In Washington Square Park, people line up for something unexpected. It is a conversation with a stranger who wants to bring out the magic in them.
The project is called Hidden Stars: The Magic of You. It is built around a simple possibility. Someone else can see something extraordinary in you before you see it yourself.
The Man at the Center
At its center is David Drebin, who has spoken with hundreds of people in the park. His starting point is the gap between who you show the world and who you really are.
He works through observation, intuition, and conversation. He shares what he notices. He draws attention to the qualities people overlook, underestimate, or keep hidden. The ambition is to make people feel great about themselves, with the confidence to reveal more of who they are.
His starting point is the gap between who you show the world and who you really are.
For most of his career Drebin has worked on the other side of a lens. His pictures are cinematic and dreamlike, built around beauty and longing, and his neon works glow in the same register. He is a globally collected multidisciplinary artist, represented by some of the finest galleries in the world, with ten books to his name. Many are published by teNeues, among them Chasing Paradise, Dreamscapes, and Love and Lights. His latest is a love letter to the city called I ❤️ New York. Another, Before They Were Famous, gathers his early pictures of people who went on to become household names, from Charlize Theron to Steve Jobs.
"I've spent my whole career capturing the external," Drebin told The Village Voice. "This is about exploring the internal." The Voice described the sessions as unscripted and free. Some last a couple of minutes. Some run much longer. Some end in laughter and some in tears.
The Lineup
The lineups bring the idea into public view. In a city of people rushing past one another, strangers stop and wait for a moment of undivided attention. Each conversation begins with a new person and a different possibility.
That is rarer in New York than it sounds. Attention is the one thing this city never gives away. This magazine has written about a painter who asks strangers on the subway to sit for her, and Hidden Stars works on the same instinct. Look long enough at the person in front of you and something surfaces.
For an artist who has spent decades building fantasies with a camera, it is a public risk. There is no set, no lighting, and no second take. There is a park, a line, and whoever is brave enough to step up. The Voice noted that there are no cameras rolling during the readings. The man who made his name with a lens leaves it out of the frame. The person across from him might shrug, or might open up in a way they did not expect. Drebin does not know which it will be until it happens, and that uncertainty is part of the work.
Calling All Performers
The invitation also extends to anyone ready to sing, dance, or share a talent.
Calling all performers. The experienced, the undiscovered, and the ones who have been waiting for a reason to begin. Bring the song you have only sung at home. Bring the moves your friends insist people need to see.
Performance becomes another way to reveal what is inside. You can come for a conversation, step forward to share your talent, or watch others take their moment.
The people who arrive shape the experience. Somewhere in the lineup might be a remarkable voice. Somewhere in the audience, someone might finally find the nerve to use theirs.
Somewhere in the audience, someone might finally find the nerve to use theirs.
It is a very Washington Square idea. The park has long been a room with no walls, a place where the city tries out new versions of itself in public. Hidden Stars adds one more thing to that tradition. It is a stranger who stops, looks, and tells you what he sees.
Hidden Stars: The Magic of You takes place in Washington Square Park. It is free and open to all. After a career spent behind the camera, Drebin now turns the spotlight toward you.
