Greenpoint Is For Art Lovers

Every world class city has an art museum. Paris has the Louvre. London has The Victoria & Albert Museum, Moscow has the Pushkin. Our own fair city has the Guggenheim, MOMA, the Whitney and numerous others. I imagine all the previous are nice enough (not that I would know from personal experience: I have not been overseas since I was nine years old), but there’s something about the white walls and museum guards that make me feel less than welcome.

For this reason and many more (as you will see) I am very proud to announce that Greenpoint— yes, the Garden Spot of the Universe— too has its own museum and the co-proprietors will make you feel right at home! Where is this hitherto unknown oasis of culture, you ask?

This Pompidou for the people is located at 61 Greenpoint Avenue (AKA: our very beloved Pencil Factory)! Let’s take a peek inside, shall we?

This installation is what first caught my eye. Immediately after I took the above photograph the co-docents eagerly rushed in to explain to me the purpose/provenance of their collection: it is all stuff they found on the street. Noting my interest on the mummified doll second from the right one of the guys offered to let me have it. I declined, as I felt its absence would diminish the overall je nais sais quoi of this installation.

To my educated eye what these guys have going is a lot more than mere chock a block collection of urban detritus. The real genius lies in how our co-curators (who I presume to be co-managers of the freight elevator) put this show together.

L’il Jon juxtaposed with a mass-produced print of a lion to which someone has added the inscription:

I love animals.

Babes: deconstructed.

After I took the above photograph one of the gentleman pointed out to me that the women in the bottom left hand photograph are drunk. I joked to him that if these lasses weren’t at the time this picture was taken they probably were shortly thereafter. He found this very amusing.

Landscapes, still lives, paint by numbers, abstracts and of course…

another scantily clad woman.

This Paul Richard hangs in the elevator across from…

a woman wearing a head brace and yet more scantily clad women. I imagine at this point the more humorless feminists reading this are getting into a tizzy. No worries, these guys have something for everyone.

These lights were rather nice.

This chicken was hands-down one of my faves. Note the artful placement of two red feathers!

And who in their right mind could object to this portrait of the virgin Mary?

Especially when juxtaposed with the King of Pop, Jesus Juice and Bubbles the Chimp!

They have Piglet, Tigger and Winnie the Pooh too!

I give this collection— which hails from the freight entrance of the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory and which I have christened the Greenpoint Museum of Art— two enthusiastic thumbs up! Bravo, guys!

Miss Heather