The Houston Bowery Wall, also known simply as the Bowery Wall, is a famous

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

wall currently owned and curated by Goldman Properties., on the Lower East Side area of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The concrete wall, on Houston St and the intersection of the

Bowery The Bowery () is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north.Jackson, Kenneth L. ...

, had been a popular graffiti spot in the early 1980s, when street artist

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

created a large mural on it in 1982. The wall was acquired by Goldman Properties in 1984.

Tony Goldman Tony Goldman (December 6, 1943 – September 11, 2012) was an American real estate developer and arts visionary. Early life and education Goldman was born to a single mother in Wilmington, Delaware (Goldman's biological father was overseas in t ...

began using the wall for advertisements, though they were regularly vandalized. The wall once again become an art spot in 2008, when Goldman gave curator

Jeffrey Deitch Jeffrey Deitch (pronounced ''DIE-tch'';Mike Boehm (January 12, 2010)L.A.'s MOCA picks art dealer Jeffrey Deitch as director''Los Angeles Times''. born 1952) is an American art dealer and curator. He is best known for his gallery Deitch Projects ( ...

the right to commission large murals for the wall, with new pieces added every 6-12 months. Since 2008, several

street artist A street artist is a person who makes art in public places. Street artists include portrait artists, caricaturists, graffiti artists, muralists and people making crafts. Street artists can also refer to street performers such as musicians, acrob ...

s have had their works showcased on this famous wall., including:

Shepard Fairey Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker campai ...

, FAILE,

Os Gêmeos OSGEMEOS (also known as Os Gemeos or Os Gêmeos, Portuguese for ''The Twins'') are identical twin street artists Otavio Pandolfo and Gustavo Pandolfo (born 1974). They started painting graffiti in 1987 and their work appears on streets and in gall ...

, Logan Hicks,

Kenny Scharf Kenny Scharf (born November 23, 1958) is an American painter known for his participation in New York City's interdisciplinary East Village art scene during the 1980s, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Scharf's do-it-yourself pract ...

, Aiko Nakagawa,

Ron English Ron English (born June 6, 1959) is an American contemporary artist who explores brand imagery, street art, and advertising. Career English has produced images on the street, in museums, in movies, books and television. He coined the term POPa ...

, TATS CRU, David Flores, and many others. The site is often reviewed as a significant part of the New York City art world. Many artists and institutions have used this famous spot to draw attention to global issues, such as a 2018 installation by JR in collaboration with ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine about guns in America, a 2018 piece by

Banksy Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigram ...

highlighting the imprisonment of an artist by the Turkish government, and a celebration of global culture in 2019 by Tomokazu Matsuyma. In May 2022, the owners of the wall announced an indefinite break from new murals on the wall, due to increased vandalism. BoweryWall

References

{{reflist Murals in New York City