Hrag Vartanian

A blog of art, culture, photography, writing and ideas.

Williamsburg Developers Like Street Art…Huh?

August 13th, 2008 · 7 Comments

Veken spotted this giant panel a few days ago at N9th & Driggs and fantasized about taking it down.

Today, he walked by and saw the developer (or who he assures me definitely looked like the developer) ripping it down with 5 construction workers decked out in orange vests and the whole 9 yards.

Veken approached the men and asked if he could have it. The developer guy said no, looked a little shifty and then explained he was going to put it back up! Veken didn’t really buy the story.

Now…just a few minutes ago, Veken reports that the workers put it back up and did a better job of attaching it to the barrier and even moved it one panel over (here is a detail of what it looked like before).

Is this an ad? Was that the artist masquerading as the developer with 5 construction dudes? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!?!?

Something’s fishy in Billyburg!

Tags: American · Brooklyn · New York · art news

7 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Veken Gueyikian — The developer must have actually liked the art // Aug 13, 2008 at 8:13 pm

    [...] Hrag has the full story.. check it out at hragvartanian.com [...]

  • 2 Construction Job // Aug 14, 2008 at 11:50 am

    Loader Street, Waterkant Street, Dixon Street and Napier Street. Construction Job

  • 3 Street Art Goes Missing Again in Williamsburg // Aug 17, 2008 at 9:52 pm

    [...] that wall where the huge plywood “street art” work was up and then down and then up again? Now it’s gone…what happened? This is getting stranger by the [...]

  • 4 jmr // Oct 26, 2008 at 11:01 am

    i’m not sure what happened either. i put it up one sunday morning, and when i came back a few days later to shoot it, it had been moved. then it was just taken down. hopefully someone has it somewhere and it didn’t get dumpstered.

  • 5 hv // Oct 26, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    My question is, why did they take it down and put it back up? And then take it down again?

  • 6 hv // Oct 26, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    Also Veken offered to take it if they didn’t want it but they said no.

  • 7 jmr // Oct 26, 2008 at 8:05 pm

    beats me. maybe someone else just took it. i use one-way screws so it has to be pried off, which it was. they re-posted it with regular screws.

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