By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
EAST VILLAGE — Talk about bringing art to new heights.
The nonprofit artists' organization Fourth Arts Block unveiled its newest mural installation this week covering a stretch of scaffolding in the East Village.
The piece is part of a rotating series of works to hang above FAB's East 4th Street cultural center, located between Second Avenue and the Bowery, enhancing an otherwise drab scaffolding bridge that's stood there for the past five years.
"I feel like it should be happening everywhere," said Tamara Greenfield, FAB's executive director, who first came up with the idea in 2006. "You have these giant mural spaces, so why shouldn't we be using them?"
Greenfield said all she needed was permission from the scaffolding company and the building's owner to put up the pieces, bypassing the sometimes-complicated city approval process for installing public art.
The mural also helps further FAB's efforts of taking art from the traditional gallery setting and making it more available to the everyday person.
"It really feels like the East Village," said Joyce Manalo, who curated the new mural, "Kick-line" by Ryan Cronin, which pays tribute to 4th Street's history as an art and performance district.
"It doesn't have to be so intellectualized. It's really accessible work."
FAB has also worked with local schools and youth groups to create pieces for the site as a way to "pull in different parts of the community" and allow them to showcase their work publicly, Greenfield explained.
"People want these really culturally dynamic neighborhoods," she said, "but there's a barrier for how to access it."
And with FAB recently opening a small café directly across the street from the mural, patrons can enjoy a cup of coffee while looking out onto the piece — instead of slabs of wood.
"It just seemed like such a no-brainer to me," Greenfield said. "Scaffolding is really ugly, so let's put art on it."
The artist Cronin also appreciated the opportunity to display his work on the street, and said a construction worker approached him while he installing it to chat about the piece.
"You attract that audience when you work in public," he said. "That's the audience I like to attract, not the high-art crowd. Those are my people — real people."
