By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — While artist James De La Vega's museum/store on St. Mark's Place closed over the summer after five years, his street graffiti has been appearing on discarded furniture throughout the city.
His simple, motivational messages — including his trademark phrase "Become Your Dream" — have turned up on couches, tables and other items left on curbs across Manhattan.
But the artist isn't necessarily taking credit for the guerilla-style scrawls, explaining that people have adopted his statements and images to spread the De La Vega gospel themselves.
"Whether it was written by a kid on the street or I wrote it, it always has serious weight," he said of the graffiti, most recently spotted on an abandoned desk and couch in the East Village, just blocks from his former museum/store, and on a table on the Upper East Side.
"Whether its written on a mattress, on a piece of cardboard, it's just the context of the message," he added, noting that the words are particularly poignant during the city's "sort of dark, uncertain times."
"The timing is just so on the money. That's why it's so powerful. If you went to a gallery and saw it on a painting, it wouldn't be as interesting."
The East Harlem native has garnered international attention for his public murals and chalk drawings, writing thought-provoking messages like "Beauty Magazines Make My Girlfriend Feel Ugly" and creating images of an African American pope.
During the Museum Mile Festival, when the major museums along Fifth Avenue open their doors for free, the artist has participated by equipping the public with chalk to draw on the streets alongside him.
Since much of the artist's work exists in temporary — and, sometimes, not exactly legal — form, the impermanent nature of these recreations fits well with De La Vega's philosophy, he explained.
"I'm a big fan of the street as a source of communicating," said the artist, who has been convicted on graffiti charges in the past for doing large-scale murals in the city.
"Now you no longer see garbage in the same light," he added. "Trash in the street can become a means of expression."
