JR Unfurls 6-Story Wheat-paste on Mulberry Street

French Street artist JR spent the better part of Monday rolling his stamp onto Little Italy. Again.

Barely a month after papering the arched garage door at the former graffiti mecca, 11 Spring Street, JR was back in action just a couple blocks to the northwest. Out came the scaffold and mechanized cherry picker. The world-renowned artist chose the vacant lot at the corner of Prince and Mulberry as the site for his latest vision – an epic six-story wheat-paste – which certainly trumps the previous effort. This particular piece is another in the “Lakota Series” as part of his InsideOut Project, and features a black-and-white image of Brandon Many Ribs, reportedly a Native American from the reservation in North Dakota.

This lot, a onetime photogenic display of urban decrepitude, has seen a resurgence within the last couple years. Such a valuable sliver of land, it basked in fifteen minutes of fame back in early 2010 when Shake Shack vied for an extension here. Neighbors drove them away. Since then, the fencing and all the grittier elements have been carted away (i.e. the rotten shed). Now the corner plot is instead a sanitized playground of upscale advertising.

December 2008