GRAFFITI BOMBED 21st PRECINCT

If you're in the NYC vicinity this weekend or next you have no excuse not to go see these 4 floors of brilliance at 21st Precinct. It's running today and next Saturday and Sunday, August 23 and 24th 1-6pm at 327 22nd Street.

This building is in my hood. I've passed it a thousand times. I've always been interested in the goings on inside because it was a half way house for LGBTQ teens. The teens would hang out on the front steps as entertaining eye candy as I would pass by. I thought often there must be amazing stories inside. Now to find out the former history as a violent police precinct dating back to the 1800's I'm even more intrigued, but now it's to be demolished like so many other buildings for more luxury condos.

But let's get back to what you're going to see...some of the names Elle, Hellbent, Pesu, Pixote, RAE, Smells, Ghost, Adam Dare, Sheryo and The Yok, Lexi Bella, Vexta, Damon Johnson, Never, Mr. Toll, bunny M, Faust, Ricardo Cabret, GIZ, Tone Tank, Ket, and Nepo...the list goes on and on... start on the 4th floor and work your way down. My only disappointment is that my kid isn't going to be in town to view this with me. We've posted about our love of graffiti before WE SPY, but hopefully given this success Outlaw Arts will find more buildings to dress-up on their way out of the city's grid.

For those of you that can't get yourselves here...this is what you would have seen. Enjoy!

wax candle corpse with video installation

Esteban Del Valle The Warriors

N. Carlos Jay City Busy Dying

PICASSO VS DALI

Rusto, Magic Smoke and receipts

This bathroom was one of my favorites. Thank you LV ART!

I'm soaking this up...

Jesper Haynes was a printer for Ralph Gibson in the 80's I loved his darkroom installation...

Jesper Haynes' photos

It's been a good while since I have seen a space oozing with creativity and non-pretentiousness. I hope this continues and thank you to Outlaw Arts for giving these artists the space they deserve to express themselves. 

COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY? RAIN ROOM, MOMA NYC

Rain Room from behind the ropes

Should we come back another day? I said this to the kid every time we walked up to the Rain Room at Moma this summer. The wait was so long each time and my corporate membership wouldn't upgrade us to the shorter members line. The first time we went, the wait was 2.5 hours and we thought no way are we waiting that long, that's ridiculous, but after becoming a member to jump the line and passing by a wait of 3, 4.5 and 7 hours on the next several visits we ended up waiting 8.5 hours on the closing weekend just because we had to see it for our selves.

This is just part of the line when we arrived at 7am on Saturday morning, closing weekend

It almost felt like a punishment for not realizing that 2.5 hours was actually reasonable. We were prepared with downloaded movies and an assortment of snacks, but we thought arriving at 7am would guarantee us no longer than a 3 hour wait. When we saw the enormous line when we arrived we almost left to go back home and crawl back into bed, but the kid said NO I want to stay. Later we found out from security that people had actually spent the night in sleeping bags.

It's been over 8 hours and we are next in line, The kid is finally happy

During this painfully long wait I realized a few things. For one, I'm a sucker for a gimmick, visual feast for the eyes or photo-op. Secondly, my kid is extremely patient and a glass of wine from the food cart made me more patient. I will never wait until the final weekend to see a show in NYC ever again. And finally, my fellow New Yorkers are wonderfully fun and kind people when they are trapped in a line for multiple hours to see art.

A perfect rain shower

Showing some love on the back wall inside Rain Room

We overheard while in the line, an art collector in in the midwest, can't remember the city, had a rain room installed in their home. Now that's how you really 'make it rain'.