In Full Color on Houston Street

Photo by myself on Houston Street, in Nolita.

A mural originally created by the pop artist Keith Haring in 1982, along Houston Street. The mural was repainted last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the artist's birth.

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The nice thing about art in the city is that it's usually done on a large scale. You have to compete against so much, after all, that to be recognized by passersby as art takes something.

Another nice thing about public art is that people talk about it later. There was a huge turnout for The Gates in Central Park, for instance, Christo's 2005 installation of orange temporary structures.

Everyone had an opinion about The Gates. For once, lunchtime conversation revolved around whether the Gates qualified as Art, instead of another discussion about American Idol. The fact that the Gates were temporary mattered - they were Art, but they were also an Event that was publicized and experienced and then taken down.

For a little more about the Keith Haring mural, click here.

Related posts: Art for Public's Sake, At the Brooklyn Museum - The DIzzying World of Murakami and What's on the Walls Underground.