For those of you who don't follow the international graffiti scene, the big story coming out of New York these last few years is that of the demolition of "5Pointz".   Seventeen years ago, a block-long derelict building was graciously given over - free of charge - by the owner, Jerry Wolkoff, to graffiti artists and those selling like-paraphernalia.   Artists were allowed to paint and operate within the confines of that real estate without limit, without censorship.


      It quickly became the East Coast's nexus for graffiti artists, and those who appreciated such - many making pilgrimages to the building to contribute artistically, or just to witness the bizarre artwork within.   Journalists wanting an easy Sunday-supplement filler story needed go no further than 5Pointz for all the 'color' and 'counterculture' they could stand.


      But five years ago, owner/ developer Wolkoff decided to redevelop his real estate, and proceeded to, first, paint out the graffiti, and second, demolish the building.   This meant the graffiti artists and spin-off stalls had to go.   -And the graffiti artists didn't take it lightly - they hired a lawyer and sued the owner for destruction of 'their' property.   A judge decided in the artists' favor, awarding them $6.7 million in damages.   Let this be a lesson to owner/ developer Wolkoff - no good deed, even one of 12 years' duration, goes unpunished.   The case is currently under appeal.



      Fast-forward to the present:   Recently, the owners of a new hotel, the CitizenM New York Bowery Hotel, in coordination with Marie Cecile Flageul, have commissioned graffiti artists to decorate the upper floor stairwells.   Flageul is curator of MOSA (the new Museum of Street Art), and she has invited a number of 5Pointz graffiti artists to preserve -in permanent installation- some of that lost artistic 'treasure'.

      The 'preservation' of the 5Pointz graffiti pieces is, of course, a state-of-mind, an illusion, promoted by the museum and the Press - as nothing has actually been preserved.   (Graffiti by definition, is, in part, an unfettered and transient art form, awaiting either removal by authorities, or over-painting by other graf artists.)   What the hotel and the museum have instead is commissioned reproductions by just 20 of those several hundreds of graf artists that, in their youth, threw-up the wildest parts their imagination on the walls of that long-demolished building.