By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — Talk about struggling artists.
A two-year-old art collective that operates an event and exhibition space on the Lower East Side has reportedly been locked out of its Bowery building for owing $1 million in back rent and for using the property illegally.
Collective Hardware, a group of artists that took over the five-story building at 169 Bowery to “use it as a crucible for their creative ambitions,” according to its website, is more than $1 million in arrears to its landlord, the New York Post reported.
City marshals came and padlocked the building last week, the paper said.
A representative for the building owner told the Post that the art group does not have a certificate of occupancy to hold events or parties at the space, nor a public assembly permit.
“That creates a safety issue for the unsuspecting public," the representative, Gordon Lau, told the paper.
One of Collective Hardware’s founders said that the group had paid through January 2009 and had offered to hand over $725,000 last week.
In a May 17 letter posted on its Facebook page, the group said its “need[s] a new lead investor, a white knight, so to speak, that shares our vision and can help us at this final step.”
The group described itself as “a focal point for NYC art culture and even compared to Warhol’s Factory; it has been surely a great honor,” the letter continued. “Yet today, we find ourselves at a crossroads.”
