New York at Its Core What made New York New York

At MCNY Exhibitions, *Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland* is approached less as a children’s tale than as a cultural object with a long afterlife. First published in Victorian England, the story follows Alice’s abrupt passage into a logic-bending world populated by talking animals and unstable rules, a touchstone for what later came to be called literary nonsense. In New York, its imagery has circulated for generations through theater, illustration, and fashion, shaping the city’s taste for the surreal. The exhibition’s quiet argument is that nonsense can be a serious lens on modern life.