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Tuesday 5 Jul 11
Bowery mural commissions taken over by real estate company
Paris-based street artist and photographer JR installs portrait of Native American
new york. The eye-catching mural at the corner of New York's Houston and Bowery, which has hosted works by street artists championed by Jeffrey Deitch, is now being solely managed by real estate company Goldman Properties. The company chairman, Tony Goldman, is curator for the wall's programming, following collaborations with the now defunct Deitch Projects and The Hole gallery.
Goldman Properties first made use of the wall in summer 2008 when it partnered with the Keith Haring Foundation and Deitch Projects, which at the time represented Haring's estate, to recreate Haring’s 1982 mural Untitled. With Deitch, the wall served as a canvas for works by Brazilian twin brothers Os Gemeos and the Los Angles-based Shepherd Fairey. After Deitch closed his Soho gallery in 2010 to become the director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, former Deitch directors Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman founded The Hole, which went on to partner with Goldman. Together they showed works by Barry McGee and Kenny Scharf, who created the most recent mural, which has been up since December 2010. “The Hole was not that involved,” said Goldman. “They took the space because I wanted to give Jeffery the opportunity to keep street art alive.” Coleman left her position as co-director of The Hole earlier this year and is now working for Goldman Properties as its arts manager.
The current pasted-paper mural is by Paris-based street artist and photographer JR. It is sponsored by the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, which awarded JR its annual $100,000 prize last year. With his winnings, the artist has created a project called “Inside Out”, where the public can upload black and white portraits to a website, which are then installed as posters wherever they choose. The Bowery piece depicts the magnified eyes of DJ Two Bears, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota. “People forget that we’re here as Native American people. This is a great chance for the community of Standing Rock to tell their story,” said the photo’s subject during the installation in June.
The mural will be on view for three to four months, as works are scheduled to change four times a year. “I don’t want it to ever be stagnant,” Goldman said.
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