From 1999 to 2001, Brooklyn-based conceptual artist Ellen Harvey executed the stealth intervention 'New York Beautification Project,' for which she painted 40 tiny oval oil landscape paintings directly onto existing graffiti sites throughout the city, inspiring small, unexpected moments of joy for anyone who happened to be paying attention at, say, 103 Franklin Street between Church Street and West Broadway in January of 2001—the site and date of the first two photographs in this series. “This was the second time that I made a painting based on Caspar David Friedrich’s painting of an oak tree,” Harvey writes. “The first version in SoHo got covered by graffiti the day after I finished it, which made me sad because I had liked it a lot. Unfortunately, I never liked this second version as much. Maybe because it had lost the charm of novelty. Or maybe the lost first version was just better.… While I was painting here, a man came up to me and asked me to sign his portfolio. He thought that my signature might be valuable someday. His portfolio was made out of plastic, so my signature wouldn’t stick. I ended up signing his subway map in oils instead. This building finally got renovated and the painting is gone now.” Documented in this reprint of the sold-out first edition are both the works themselves and Harvey's diaristic accounts of painting illegally throughout the city. The narrative of her “beautification project” is both provocative and hilarious. It touches on such issues as who is allowed to make art in our society, and what distinguishes art from graffiti, while never losing touch with the frequently comical reality of creating a contemporary art project on the streets of New York. Read more via linkinbio. @ellenharveystudio #ellenharvey #newyorkbeautificationproject https://www.instagram.com/p/CSetjKcssX7/?utm_medium=tumblr
