Filmmaker Zack Obid literally trembles with excitement: he has just found a miniature work of art in one of the rare treasure hunts that an American artist organizes every week in his beloved neighborhood of Greenpoint, in the New York borough of Brooklyn.
Steve Wasterval estimates that in the last three years he has painted and hidden some 80 tiny landscapes of Greenpoint, a neighborhood with a large Polish community that in recent years has become increasingly ‘hipster’, attracting artists and people with creative work.
“I really wanted to give away my art, hang it on the walls, in the streets,” 40-year-old Wasterval told AFP in his Greenpoint studio, in a former Faber Castell pencil factory that occupies the entire block.
“But how to nail them to the walls? And people would take them out right away (…) I remember that I thought they should be tiny paintings, to be able to hide them and for people to find them,” he said.
– “A small trophy” –
In general, every weekend, without a specific time, Wasterval publishes on his Instagram account a photo of a tiny landscape in front of the site that inspired the work, always in Greenpoint.
In just a couple of minutes, a dozen people appear who start looking for the work everywhere: behind a wall, on a fire escape …
Sometimes the artist is close, sometimes not. If asked, he helps the “hunters” with clues that he sends by direct messages on the social network.
He does not sell his small impressionist landscapes of about 5×3.8cm that he finishes in about an hour, and he assures that he never will.
“Every week there are people who send me messages saying they want to order one, or buy one. No, never, never. You can’t buy them and you can’t order them, you have to find them. They are like a small trophy that people brag about having” , Explain.
Wasterval wants to portray his neighborhood in full transformation, socialize with its neighbors and have fun. And of course, to disclose their art, the small and the great, which only differs from the first in its size, and in its value.
His most popular “large” works, generally about 60×90 cm or 75×100 cm, are on sale for $ 2,000 and $ 3,000 respectively.
“The idea is to do this forever. I want it to remain what it is … It’s a marketing thing, but it’s fun because it doesn’t feel like that.”
– Fun and community –
This time, Wasterval has chosen to paint the corner of the popular neighborhood pizzeria Paulie Gee. In the park with children’s games opposite, among children running around playing hide and seek, he has hidden his little painting under a flower pot.
In a couple of minutes, Zack Obid, a 27-year-old documentary filmmaker who lives a block away, arrives. He searches like crazy everywhere, while other people start to arrive, some on bicycles. Every few seconds several stop to check their phones for new tracks from the artist.
When he finds the painting, Obid screams and laughs and shakes with excitement. It’s the fifth he’s encountered in the last three years, and he’s ecstatic.
“This is fantastic!” Exclaims the filmmaker, who recently bought a large work by the artist.
“This is something fun, community, a fun way to go around the neighborhood (…) For many people it is a way to own a true original work of art, and also, to portray our home,” Greenpoint explains.
Lisa Llanes, a 38-year-old graphic designer, was late this time. She is the recent winner of two hunts.
“I’ve lived in Greenpoint for almost eight years now, and this is exciting for the neighborhood. It’s also nice that Steve is a local artist and that these little paintings are so adorable,” he says.
Wasterval hopes one day to hold an exhibition with all the “minis”, as he calls them, on loan from the winners of the hunts.
And he plans to expand the project to the rest of the city.
“People ask me to go to different neighborhoods,” he said. “I’m going to extend the radius slowly,” he anticipated.
lbc/ll/lda
–
