Industrial Art

After my walk along Myrtle Avenue, I took a turn onto Wyckoff, into Bushwick's industrial zone, an area like Gowanus or Red Hook, turning into art galleries and lofts, yet still functioning and buzzing with industry. Here you can still hear the grinding of sheet metal and clanking of mysterious machines.



The buildings are covered with urban street art. Wandering through the desolate quiet, you never know what you will see when you turn the corner. Maybe a hoochie mama straddling a gold Rolls Royce...



...or a wall of inexplicably goggled men rowing bathtubs across a sea of skulls inhabited by baby llamas--a massive mural by Broken Crow, Paint Goggles, and Over Under.



Perhaps most impressive are the "production walls" by Robots Will Kill, a three-sided collection mostly of faces, of cock-eyed beings wearing neckties and fezzes and men with mountainous double chins; along with a few animals--birds on a branch and a fish carrying what looks like a four-poster bed on its back. All of it set against the starkly beautiful industrial landscape.



Wander around and you'll come upon smaller pieces--tucked into corners and slapped onto abandoned doorways.



Faces wearing weary expressions, fed-up faces, men in hats, riding horses, women crying and dancing.

All these things. Maybe the world isn't ending. Here, people are at work, on art and at machines. There is a catch-your-breath feeling. A quiet equilibrium.

Can it stay like this? Or will the tide of glass towers inevitably arrive and wash it all away?



See all my Industrial Bushwick pics here