World Trade Center Mural Project

The World Trade Center “Mural Project” had its origins because of a collaboration between gallery owner Doug Smitch of the World Trade Gallery and Dara McQuillan of Silversten Properties. That collaboration, “Graffiti in the Sky,” featured sixty well-known street artists painting 34,000 square feet on the 69th floor of 4 World Trade Center, overlooking the 9/11 Memorial. After the success of this project, Silverstein Properties partnered with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to feature some of the same artists who have created large-scale murals on steel sheds at the future site of 2 World Trade Center next to the Oculus. We greatly enjoyed the infusion of color and artistry at this site, and the artists—including Joohee Park, known as Stickymonger—do a wonderful job of bringing to the site a message for a hopeful future.

Wynwood Walls

The Wynwood Walls in Miami were originally conceived by the late real estate developer Tony Goldman, who was looking to transform the warehouse district of Wynwood. He came up with a simple idea, he explained at the time: “Wynwood’s large stock of warehouse buildings, all with no windows, would be my giant canvases to bring to them the greatest street art ever seen in one place.” Since their inception in 2009, over fifty artists from sixteen countries have covered over 80,000 square feet of walls. We were able to visit the walls before our return to New York, and were blown away by the talent of the artists. We were lucky enough to see some artists in action as well. As part of the world famous Art Basel show going on this week in Miami Beach, Wynwood Walls invited artists to work on installations live for spectators. As Goldman once said about the walls: “The project has truly evolved into what my friend Jeffrey Deitch calls a ‘Museum of the Streets.’”

Museum of Street Art at Bowery Hotel

The Museum of Street Art (MoSA) in the citizenM New York Bowery Hotel is a “love letter” to downtown Manhattan’s the Bowery and the Lower East Side. The museum, dedicated to featuring the work of prominent graffiti artists, features work by the 5 Pointz creates collective, a group of twenty artists who originally painted work on 5 Pointz, the iconic five-story, block-long building in Long Island City that graffiti artists around the world used as a canvas for twelve years, but which was demolished in November 2013. Marie Cecile Flageul, MoSA’s curator, described the wonderful feeling of these graffiti artists having a new home: “It’s kind of like symbolizing us being a little happy again. Because now we have a home here and we’re able to, you know, come back and share a passion for aerosol art.” Visitors to the museum must check in at the hotel lobby, are guided by an ambassador to the 20th floor via the elevator, and enter the emergency stairwell (aka the “museum”) to descend back down to the lobby. Entry to the museum is free, but reservations are required.