Fairey on Houston

Shepard Fairey just put his mark on the wall Keith Haring made famous, on Houston and Bowery.  Like Haring, Fairey covers surfaces with his signature style and activates spaces that were previously neutral, unnoticed, or forgotten.  But unlike Haring, Fairey’s work draws direct inspiration from traditional wallpaper– his oft used, repeating floral pattern looks like it came right out of a baroque living room.  By conjuring wallpaper right beside images that evoke posters, newspapers, stickers, and flags, Fairey creates the illusion of paper layers and toys with the idea of surface itself.

To me, Fairey’s mural on Houston highlights the perhaps obvious but nonetheless dramatic transformation that has happened to New York since Haring painted his mural on the same spot in 1982.  “The corner of Houston and Bowery was a desolate area to begin with,” Haring once recalled, “so we decided that we didn’t have to ask permission.  We thought that if we cleaned up the garbage then no one was going to ask us whether we had permission to paint it.”  How times have changed!

New York Magazine has a terrific slide show of the installation process.  I’m looking forward to seeing the show at Dietch.

[Images from Tom Slaughter]