It’s been fun to watch the millions of visitors, tourists, art students and locals who are always marvelling and photographing DUMBO’s outdoor art exhibition, which now traverses along the path to, and under the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. Since this art pop up debuted a few years ago, my favorite of all of the eight unique and colorful painted murals has, and still is, the refreshingly renowned “Rainbow Wall” – which is a block long and heavy on the color yellow, (a color of happiness, and optimism, of enlightenment and creativity, sunshine and spring – pretty much defines DUMBO nowadays.)
This pretty art project was originally developed and privately funded by the DUMBO BID, Two Trees Management and the NYCDOT to signify community pride. In large part, they played a small part in a communal clean up around the once decrepit area in the dark tunnels, and under the bright bridges in Brooklyn. The real heroes were the artists that were chosen who could paint before a gathered crowd, and create work that would compliment and celebrate the local culture and beauty of the streets of DUMBO.
The artists themselves did the heavy lifting, responsible for catapulting themselves atop scaffolding throughout the day and night to create this fun art display. All the while giving credence to the foolish selfie stick generation that seems to think that taking pictures of art is actually more important than actually enjoying it, looking at it, smelling the fresh paint, perhaps. (The faint paint aroma is still present, particularly on warm days.)
The” DUMBO Walls” project is a series of colorfully painted wall extravaganzas which were painted on blank brick, dirty walls. With the help of the area’s leading developers, and lovers of all things DUMBO, this splashy give back to the downtown Brooklyn community was implemented to further encourage more open air exhibition space and to compliment the already multi-colored and universal art scene that is now seen around the world. And it worked, thanks, to – this – wall, now people from far and wide trek across the river, and wait in line (in D.I.Y single file) for a chance to take a picture of a picture and Instagram it to somewhere over the rainbow and then artfully uploaded onto the internet.
