While office lobbies have always provided a showcase for artworks, several prominent developers are turning their lobbies and vacant retail spaces into revolving galleries.
Currently, ABS Partners Real Estate has exhibits in three of their properties curated by Cindy Farkas Glanzrock’s Building Art Curatorial Program.
Tenants and the public can walk into 29 W. 38th St. and check out edgy pieces by Keith Haring protégée LAII/LA Roc (a k a Angel Ortiz). Sen2’s pastel graffiti decorates 915 Broadway, while sculptures by Desire Obtain Cherish are on view at 1001 Sixth Ave.
At 5 Bryant Park, the retail space was decorated by four graffiti artists before the retail tenant took over. The Equity Office-owned building used the graffiti as a way to rebrand the building and pump up its energy.
Brooklyn-based Max Bode, Don Rimx (a k a Edwin David Sepulveda) of Puerto Rico, San Francisco artist Chor Boogie (a k a Jason Lamar Hailey) and Polish painter Natalia Rak collaborated on a 100-by-25-foot-tall wall over several nights as onlookers crowded around the window.
The artists then participated in a 90-minute “Art Battle,” while each worked on their own large canvas with their initial collaboration in the background.
Further uptown, 717 Fifth Ave., also owned by Equity Office, has brought in Barbara Paley’s Art Assets in collaboration with Christie’s and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to showcase the sale of numerous original celebrity Polaroids taken by the late artist.
Photos include fashion heavyweights like Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace and Diane von Furstenberg; singers Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross and Debbie Harry; and actors Sylvester Stallone and Dennis Hopper. There are also a series of “Myths” that include Uncle Sam, Howdy Doody and a witch.
The Polaroids will be on view through May 31 and prices range from $4,000 to $26,000 with proceeds going back to the Warhol Foundation.