neighborhood news

Graffiti Mecca 5Pointz Painted White Before Becoming Luxury Condos

http://5ptz.com/graff/ 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, Inc. is an outdoor art exhibit space in Long Island City, New York, considered to be the world‚??s premiere ‚??graffiti Mecca,‚?? where aerosol artists from around the globe paint colorful pieces on the walls of a 200,000-square-foot factory building. The name 5Pointz signifies the five boroughs coming together as one but, because of its reputation as an epicenter of the graffiti scene, the industrial complex has actually united aerosol artists from across the world. Legendary writers from Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, and all over the United States have painted on the building walls, including Stay High 149, Tracy 168, Cope2, Part, and Tats Cru.
Over the past decade, the striking, graffiti-covered warehouse has attracted several hip-hop and R&B stars, including Doug E. Fresh, Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Kaz, Mobb Deep, Rahzel, DJ JS-1, Boot Camp Clik, Joan Jett, and Joss Stone.
On any given day, 5Pointz visitors can expect to find prominent artists, musicians, deejays, Emcees (rappers), and B-boys (break dancers) on site, in addition to filmmakers, photographers, and entire tour buses full of admirers soaking in the more than 350 Technicolor murals.
The gallery curator is graffiti veteran Jonathan Cohen, best known by his signature tag, ‚??Meres One.‚?? His goal is to convert the five-story, block-long industrial complex at Jackson Avenue and Davis Street, formerly the Phun Phactory, into a graffiti art museum.
Mission Statement
5Pointz gallery curator, Meres, plans to convert the five-story, block-long industrial complex at Jackson Avenue and Davis Street into a graffiti museum. He is currently seeking a 501(c)3 certification for 5Pointz to confer tax-exempt status and allow tax-deductible donations.
In addition, he plans to open a school for aspiring aerosol artists, complete with a formalized curriculum that imparts lessons in teamwork, art history, and entrepreneurship
Photo: Alex S. MacLean/?? 2011 Alex S. MacLean / Landslides

Long Island City’s massive shrine to graffiti culture is being whitewashed. According to the outdoor exhibit’s official Twitter account, the space was buffed last night by the building’s owner — with cops present to fend off art-loving hooligans — representing a huge symbolic defeat in the ongoing struggle to prevent 5Pointz from going the way of luxury condominiums.

5Pointz is the world’s largest display of graffiti art, and it’s a global social hub,” Eric Felisbret, the author of Graffiti New York, told New York Magazine last month. “Now that it looks like that’s going to disappear, I’m not sure where the movement’s going to go.”

Here’s the sad work in progress, which just became the number one target in the city for a fresh coat of new graffiti:

5Pointz Painted White Overnight: Photos