CUNY mural saved by...Joe Lhota?

FYI... The mosaic mural at City Tech has been saved! The college hired a firm to take the mural down in sections and crate it. Actually Joe Lhota, who is a CUNY trustee, and others, spoke on behalf of saving it at one of the board meetings.

Since 1% of the new building cost must be set aside for art, they're hoping it will be re-installed somewhere in the new building. They're still working on the details. But even if that doesn't work out, at least it wasn't destroyed.

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Queens' own artistical genius

From the NY Times:

Pei-Shen Qian’s neighbors on 95th Street in Woodhaven, Queens, knew he scratched out a living as an artist: he often dried his paintings in the sun, propping them up on the weathered white siding of his modest house.

They were less clear on why he kept his windows covered, or why every so often a man in an expensive car would come to the house carrying paintings to, not from, a painter.

“He would bring a painting in and show it to him, for him to work on or fix up something,” Edwin Gardiner, 68, who lives across the street, said before pausing and adding, “I don’t know what he did with it.”

Parts of the mystery became clearer on Friday as neighbors learned that Mr. Qian, a quiet 73-year-old immigrant from China in a paint-flecked smock, is suspected of having fooled the art world by creating dozens of works that were modeled after America’s Modernist masters and were later sold as their handiwork for more than $80 million.

Mr. Qian, who came here more than four decades ago and struggled to sell his own works in this country, earned just a few thousand dollars for each of his imitations. New York was a center of the art world, but Mr. Qian told friends that he had been disheartened by the difficulties he encountered finding a foothold as an artist.

“He was kind of frustrated because of the language problem, the connection problem,” said Zhang Hongtu, a friend and acclaimed Chinese artist who lives in New York. “He was not that happy.”

Mr. Qian’s low profile as a painter has evaporated; federal authorities have decided that he was the artist whose fakes are at the heart of one of the bolder art frauds in recent memory.

A revised federal indictment handed up this week charged Glafira Rosales, one of the dealers accused of having peddled his works, with money laundering and tax evasion in connection with the sales.

The indictment does not name Mr. Qian, who could not be reached for comment on Friday, but people with knowledge of the case confirmed that he was the man referred to only elliptically in the charges as the “Painter.” Neighbors say agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his home this week.

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Helen on board with 5 Pointz special permit

From the Daily News:

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall announced Wednesday that she supports the plan to tear down the building, which houses the 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, to create room for two luxury towers.

Her recommendation came after the owners of the site, Jerry and David Wolkoff, agreed to create 75 units of affordable housing for city workers, seniors, veterans and residents of northwestern Queens.

The developers also promised to create artists studios and free community space.

Better get your umbrellas out, folks. It's raining empty promises.

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Proposal to move 5 Pointz to MOMA PS1

WPIX has the story.

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CUNY to destroy mural by famous black artist

From the Daily News:

A sprawling mosaic that has long been a symbol of City Tech in downtown Brooklyn will be destroyed when the Klitgord Auditorium gets torn down sometime this summer.

The massive mural, built on the Jay St. theater in 1962 by famed African-American sculptor Nathaniel Choate, will make way for a $400 million educational complex expected to open in 2016.

School officials said only part of the mural — the school crests flanking the main artwork, but not the six figurines celebrating sports, recreation, health, competition, drama and music — could be salvaged.

“This is a loss of history and contact with the founders of this institution,” said English teacher Mary Nilles, one of several teachers who spoke against destroying the artwork.
Construction on the 400,000-square-foot college building will start as soon as the aging auditorium - including Choate’s 33 foot by 17 foot mosaic - is razed.

Choate’s work is on display at several other locations including Harvard University and the National Academy of Design in New York.


If CUNY doesn't appreciate Mr. Choate's artwork, can't they at least donate it to an institution that will? Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Historical Society, etc.?

It's embarrassing to be a CUNY alumnus these days. Sheesh.

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