Almost 30 years ago, Keith Haring put up the first mural on the Houston Street wall, a concrete slab just off of Bowery in New York. For decades, the wall had been bombed by illegal graffiti and various commercial ads, but over the past few years, the wall has seen new life through the help of curator Jeffrey Deitch and the wall's owner, Tony Goldman. The two friends began sanctioning murals at this location in 2008, and have since collaborated with artists including Os Gemeos and Shepard Fairey. With the closing of the Deitch Projects in 2010, Goldman teamed up with Deitch's successors, The Hole, to continue the wall's legacy.
The mural as you see it here is a jarring set of saturated images ranging from King Kong eating an NYPD patrol car to a flamingo smoking a cigarette. The two artists behind the mural, Pose (Jordan Nickel) of Chicago and Revok (Jason Williams) of Detroit, belong to an art collective called The Seventh Letter and a graffiti group known as the Mad Society Kings (MSK).
It was a beauty and one worth seeing, as was the artist's exhibit, Uphill Both Ways, which was seen at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in NYC. Replaced now, it's remembered here.
location nyc
photographer patrick connolly
