Brassaï declares that the “bastard art of the streets of ill repute that does not even arouse our curiosity, so ephemeral that it is easily obliterated by bad weather or a coat of paint, nevertheless offers a criterion of worth. Its authority is absolute, overturning all the laboriously established canons of aesthetics”
Ellen Harvey’s paintings from the New York Beautification Project become a testament to the strange beauty of the ephemeral, even in the way everything decays or gets covered over with time, becoming a part of the shifting layers of history, of the life of the city.
We are grateful to share a selection of stories from the project.
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