Knox Nixes Nouvel: Octogenarian Muralist’s Stealth Protest

Knox Martin, "Venus," 1970

Back in the 1970s, an organization called City Walls, precursor of today's Public Art Fund (both of which were founded by the late Doris Freedman), sponsored the creation of site-specific public artworks to enliven New York's streetscape.

One of those was Knox Martin's 12-story-high mural, "Venus," above.

That hard-edge abstraction has always had a hard-knock life. John Canaday, then NY Times art critic, who allowed that "we are lucky that it is as good as it is," nevertheless wrote this diatribe against Martin's mural specifically and the public-art movement in general:

I wish City Walls, Inc. would go soak its head. If City Walls and other outdoor mural sponsors had their way, New York would become one vast art gallery of mammoth wall paintings, and I feel about such programs much the way I feel about the piped-in music that we are forced to hear in lobbies....

Whether I am listening to music or looking at painting, I want to be able to decide where, when and what. These paintings, including Mr. Martin's as an example, don't allow the choice....They are designed less to delight the eye than to assault it.

But that indignity was nothing compared with the fate "Venus" has now suffered at the hands of architect Jean Nouvel and Cape Advisors developers. Their luxury apartment tower, 100 Eleventh Avenue, is chockablock with Martin's mural and, while still under construction, has already permanently obscured all but a sliver of his lively composition.

Curbed NY, the real estate blog, noted more than two years ago that the mural was about to be hidden from view and recounted some of its history.

Since 1970 Venus has been a New York City landmark, a precursor to the Chelsea art scene, and beloved and recognized by all New Yorkers.

In 1998 Venus was "refreshed:" repainted with a weather resistant acrylic paint developed especially by the Golden Paint Company, a paint guaranteed to last at least 75 years. Golden Paints donated the paint and the Public Art Fund again supported the project.

In May 2008, with the development of the adjacent site proceeding, the indignant 85-year-old artist decided it was time to stage a paintbrush protest. A sign for the project then partially blocked the view of his work, but Martin knew what was coming---a near-total eclipse of "Venus."

Below is a recent (tattered) sign for the project, jutting out from the incomplete tower. Just behind it, to the left, is a glimpse of Knox's recent addition:
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And here's Martin in action: Caught on a webcam at the construction site just after dawn, the doughty codger ascended by cherry picker up the side of the mural wall, and began painting a giant rendition of his first name on its left edge.

Look closely, and you will spot him working, against the blue patch:



Now he's almost done:



The year-old view that you see above is not what the site looks like today. Below is what you now see, looking north up the street from Frank Gehry's IAC building, past Nouvel's tower-in-progress, to the nearly effaced mural: