Ziggy Ramone

(Reprint)

August 8, 2004

Museum With (Only) Walls

By SARAH BAYLISS

HERE's a world-class museum on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City that's free, that's open 24/7 and that shows the top artists in their field. It has hundreds of artworks, most of them huge: murals with allegorical tales of good and evil, modern takes on Rembrandt, variations on and homages to grunge comix and the golden age of Mad magazine. The art is constantly changing, the staff is paid nothing and anyone can show there. Almost every artist uses a nom de plume. The best view is from the elevated No. 7 train.

It's not the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center but the blocklong establishment across the street — 5 Pointz: The Institute of Higher Burnin'. 5 Pointz (the name signifies the five boroughs) is New York's hub for the high aerosol — or spray-can — art. The outside walls, the rooftops and especially the loading dock, not to mention the indoor halls and air shafts or the trucks parked outside, are its Technicolor showcase.

Formerly known as the Phun Phactory, 5 Pointz is the vision of Jonathan Cohen — tag name Meres — whose dream is to have the building "100 percent covered." Artists have come from Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil and all over the United States to "piece" — make a masterpiece — at 5 Pointz. Murals are up for between a week and a year before they are painted over, and no artist is turned away.

Don't confuse the art on display here with graffiti, Meres cautions: "Graffiti is a label for writers who vandalize. Aerosol art takes hours and days. It's a form of calligraphy." (Breathing in aerosol fumes over the years has damaged his health, he says. Like many aerosol artists, he wears a mask to work.)

Random tagging — casually spraying your name across a surface — is against the rules at 5 Pointz. A derivative of gang writing, tagging is a way to mark territory. "There's nothing artistic about a tag," says the artist Nic 1, who helps Meres manage the site. "A tag is just expressing anger or whatever. You can tag blindfolded on the phone. Pieces are considered art." (Photo right taken at 5Ptz. - OUI aka Ziggy Ramone ;-)

A tag evolves into a piece when the letters become calligraphic, "taking on a style concept and a sense of structure and abstractness," Nic 1 says. But pieces can also be just pictures. When several pieces by one or more artists make up a larger picture, it becomes a "production."

5 Pointz has the blessing of the building's landlord, the developer Jerry Walkoff, who has owned it since 1971. "I have a certain passion for people in the art business," says Mr. Walkoff, who rents studio space in the building to about 90 artists and leases the rest mostly to garment-industry enterprises. As for the aerosol artworks on his property, he says, "I have no problem as long as they do it tastefully and don't endanger themselves."

view photos in the gallery here

(More 5 Pointz art, past and present, can be seen at www.5ptz.com

and at www.x-nyc.com/pointz.html )