Stephen Zacks is a reporter, theorist, and cultural producer based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and a native of Flint, Michigan.
A journalist trained in cultural studies, political and social science, and philosophy, he applies a pragmatic standard to reporting on art, architecture, and urbanism.
Zacks has contributed to the New York Times, Monocle, Village Voice, Popular Science, Metropolis, Architectural Record, Print, The Architect's Newspaper, Blueprint, TARP Architecture Manual, and RIPP Magazine. His international reporting includes coverage of Israeli architecture in the West Bank, master planning in Dubai, landmarks preservation in Kosovo, the no-man's land in Nicosia, public art in Panama, the graphic resistance in Serbia, and political art in South Korea.
As a Metropolis editor from 2005 to 2009, he reported on Steven Holl's Nelson-Atkins Museum addition in Kansas City, housing policy in New York, Stefan Behnisch's high-performance architecture in Germany, and profiled regional architects like Rand Elliott in Oklahoma City, Jeanne Gang in Chicago, Phil Freelon in North Carolina, MC2 in Houston, and Peter Gluck in New York.
He founded and co-produced Bring to Light/ Nuit Blanche New York from 2010 to 2012 and co-directed the Collective: Unconscious performance space on the Lower East Side from 1996 to 2002.
He is currently writing A Beautiful Ruin: The Generation that Transformed New York, 1967-1985, a narrative nonfiction book about New York during the period leading up to and after the mid-70s fiscal crisis, reporting for The Architect's Newspaper, Architectural Record, Metropolis, and Popular Science, producing and directing the Flint Public Art Project, and writing commentary at Heroes & Charlatans.
Zacks received an M.A. in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research in 1999 and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Humanities (History, Philosophy, Anthropology) with honors from Michigan State University in 1994. He has received awards from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Graham Foundation for the Advancement of Fine Arts, ArtPlace, the MacDowell Colony, and the Warhol Foundation.
stephen@stephenzacks.com
66 Diamond Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
o: 718-383-7421
c: 917-412-1926
