A former School of Visual Arts professor is under fire after riders discovered he had spent years secretly clicking their photos on the subway — building an online collection that includes children and women in revealing clothing.
The New York Post reported on Monday, August 3, that Brian Appel, who was a professor at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan for over a decade, has spent more than two years photographing subway riders without their knowledge and posting the images online.
The collection, called Trends in Contemporary Art: Brian Appel, includes children and numerous women wearing tank tops and revealing clothing.
Trends in Contemporary Art: Brian Appel/Facebook
Courtney Fitzpatrick, 51, told the outlet she recognized both of her daughters in the trove, one of whom appeared as Appel’s cover photo at age 16.
“It’s very creepy! It’s very scary for women,” Fitzpatrick said. “Both of my daughters were on it a year apart from each other. In fact, one was his cover photo — it was a picture of my daughter when she was 16 going to play practice with her friend, who was 14.”
Fitzpatrick said one daughter had already dealt with a stalker, deepening her fear over photos showing the exact train and time. “Having her picture up there with the train she’s on, and the time, that’s really what I am concerned about. Some weirdo just digging around there and maybe following her,” she said.
Appel identifies himself online as “Faculty Emeritus,” an honorary title SVA says he never held. “Brian Appel is no longer employed by SVA and does not hold emeritus faculty status,” a rep for the school said, according to the New York Post.
Trends in Contemporary Art: Brian Appel/Facebook
Appel removed the photo of Fitzpatrick’s daughter after she asked but kept posting new photos the next day.
He has defended the project online, writing that his photos offer “an intimate look into what’s happening in their head.”
As per a screenshot shared by The New York Post, Appel dismissed the backlash in a comment he later boosted, writing that his first thought on seeing the photos wasn’t that they were creepy, but “This is art.”
He described the collection as an unstaged record of everyday life, saying its value lies less in individual faces than in the fashion, atmosphere and fleeting moments the images capture.
Appel pointed out people are already constantly recorded through store cameras, elevators and phones, and argued the same documentation is “suddenly treated differently” once it’s labeled art.
He closed out by defending the project, writing, “History has a funny way of catching up to artists.”
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