About HANDL New York

HANDL New York Phone Grips, Stands and Cases are the brainchild of world-renown New York City artist Allen Hirsch, who has had a fascination with the power of screens since his late teens.  Whether it be television in the 1970s, computers in the 1980s or phones thereafter, Hirsch has documented our interconnectedness with screens in his art and this helped lead him to invent HANDL.

One day he was painting a picture while texting using a new large screen phone with the other hand and was immediately struck by the similarities of both actions. “In one hand, I was projecting my thoughts and feelings effortlessly on canvas with the brush and with the other, I was also projecting my thoughts and feelings into this little metal box- although with none of the flow and efficiency of the paint brush. I immediately felt this was a problem for me to solve.”  Hirsch spent the next 8 months attaching all sorts of homemade constructions on his phone until one day, with a bunch of popsicle sticks held together with thumbtacks, tape and a rubber band, he had an epiphany and HANDL was born. “With HANDL, we replace that stressful grip on our devices with a feeling that our phones are an organic extension of our hands and fingers.”

Hirsch’s art has been frequently featured on the covers of Time magazine, exhibited in the White House and Smithsonian. Hirsch has also been active as a real estate developer in Manhattan and is a founder of La Esquina restaurant in Soho, and co-founder of the Kaaterskill Inn in the Hudson Valley.  A documentary produced by the New York Times about his art and monkey, called Long Live Benjamin, recently won an Emmy.

 Some of Allen Hirsch's work can be seen below.  For more information, please visit allenhirsch.com