By Liberation Iannillo
In Lydia Lunch's bio, Paradoxia, the transgressive artist details her existence in the desolate wasteland that was SoHo during the early 1980s. Squatting in an abandoned building where the electricity had been turned off since Kennedy's assassination, Lunch constructed bizarre set designs in the store front window using discarded mannequins, dead flowers and odd trash she would find on the street. Artists like Lunch are responsible for resurrecting the once shitty neighborhoods like SoHo and DUMBO, inhabiting them when even rats took off, and then building the ruins back up to something once again livable only to get the boot when the neighborhood begins to thrive. What a difference twenty years makes.
Today SoHo is occupied with German-like precision by Chanel, Prada and John Fluevog while DUMBO has been gobbled up by real estate whore Barbara Corcoran quicker than Courtney Love can down illegal Ambien. But hidden in plain sight on Greene Street is a single building that has yet to succumb to the frenetic energy of the neighborhood. Instead of housing $300 shoes, the building is home to a small group of artists who, like Lydia Lunch, are just trying to exist and create.
Known by its occupants simply as the Greene House, the graffiti covered building located 75 Greene Street is now home to a handful of artists who hold weekly group shows. The building is owned by Sue Stein who resides on the top floor and it has been in her family for at least three generations. Over the years the structure has had many incarnations ranging from a carriage house to a clothing factory which was last operational sometime in the 1950s. For the past 50 years the grand space has elegantly decayed. With its 30 foot high ceilings, slightly shattered skylight and pock-marked cement walls, the main floor has all the opulence of a Bernardo Bertolucci film set, a seemingly appropriate venue for a group of young artists to move in and set up an impromptu art gallery.
Myles Emery, Jerry Foust, and Shelby Voice were the first artists who managed to finagle their way into the building. The three knew each other from an artist's residence they shared on St. Marks Place known as The Cave. After a falling out with the space Shelby and Miles sold some paintings and moved to a hotel on James Street while Jerry set up camp outside the Greene House. Jerry befriended Sue, the owner of the building, and convinced her to let him stay there after a number of his paintings were stolen while he slept on the sidewalk outside. When Shelby and Myles ran low on cash they left their hotel and joined Jerry in the space and together the three of them have turned the first floor into a revolving art gallery.
With unofficial openings each Friday night they have attracted a huge amount of attention with at least a dozen artists work on display. The crowd they attract ranges from bike messengers to art collectors who literally buy work off the wall. Haphazard lighting attempts to showcase the variety of work on display.
On one wall there is a seven foot portrait of Joan Crawford by Kate Hermanowski, on another wall there is a Roman-esque portrayal of the building's façade by Frank Carreno which sits next to a television set broadcasting static with John Lennon's portrait painted on it. Shelby's pieces consisting of haunted figures painted on the back sides of framed glass are by far the standout pieces the collective has to offer.
The future of the space is uncertain. Though the owner refuses to sell out and give up the storefront for retail usage she is planning on renovating the location. At the very least the artists occupying the space have a few more months to continue their creative endeavors.
