What does one do with a rundown industrial area of a major city? Well, in the case of the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami...........turn it into art!
"The Wynwood Walls was conceived by the renowned community revitalizer and placemaker, the late Tony Goldman in 2009. He was looking for something big to transform the warehouse district of Wynwood, and he arrived at a simple idea: “Wynwood’s large stock of warehouse buildings, all with no windows, would be my giant canvases to bring to them the greatest street art ever seen in one place.” Starting with the 25th–26th Street complex of six separate buildings, his goal was to create a center where people could gravitate to and explore, and to develop the area’s pedestrian potential."
"The Wynwood Walls became a major art statement with Tony’s commitment to graffiti and street art, a genre that he believed was under appreciated and not respected historically. He wanted to give the movement more attention and more respect: “By presenting it in a way that has not been done before, I was able to expose the public to something they had only seen peripherally.” In 2010, building on the momentum of the year before, Goldman Properties added 10 more artists to their roster of Walls. They opened the Wynwood Doors, Tony Goldman’s nod to traditional portrait galleries and expanded the mural program outside the Walls.
The Wynwood Walls has brought the world’s greatest artists working in the graffiti and street art genre to Miami. Jeffrey Deitch co-curated the first successful year of the project in 2009, collaborating with Tony before his appointment as museum director of MOCA Los Angeles. “We have strived for a diverse representation of both American and international artists that encompasses everything from the old school graffiti artists to the newest work being created around the world. The project has truly evolved into what my friend Jeffrey Deitch calls a Museum of the Streets,” Tony had summarized.
Since its inception, the Wynwood Walls program has seen over 50 artists representing 16 countries and have covered over 80,000 square feet of walls. They have become must see international destination, with media coverage that has included the New York Times, BBC News, Vanity Fair and Forbes, who mentioned them along with Wynwood on their list of America’s hippest neighborhoods. The Walls were also a focus of the docu-series Here Comes the Neighborhood, which chronicled the creation and evolution of the Wynwood neighborhood.
With each year the Wynwood Walls endeavors to expand its breadth, introduce well known and emerging artists and bring world class art to the community."
Source:
http://www.thewynwoodwalls.com/
For some of these images, I included the periphery to give a sense of the scale.
The humans below are posing in front of a small part of the above mural.
The walls and neighborhood are a popular destination for photographers.
This one is painted on a roll-up garage style door.
Visitors rest in the rock garden.
I am not sure if this piece was "tagged" after the fact or, as part of the artist's design. It is an interesting idea - to graffiti on graffiti.
The palm fronds are real plants.
There is also an onsite gallery for regular hang-on-the-wall art pieces.
This painted motorcycle was one of the works of art for sale.
As was this wild and interesting piece.
Murals can be found on random buildings throughout the neighborhood - on industrial buildings and.....
...even on this apartment building! What a wonderful way to revitalize an urban area!!
I have always liked creative/managed/artistic graffiti in public places. This visit to Wynwood reminds me of a trip to Charleston, South Carolina a few years back.
Here's a link to my blog post about it. The scale here is much grander but, in either case, graffiti as art is art.
