The new mural

In this country there is no greater work of public art than the mural by Diego Rivera in the Detroit Institute of the Arts, Complex culturally and politically the grand fresco employs the Sistine Chapel sense of gravitas with  narrative references to contemporary history and the sweeping saga of human life.  It is a masterwork.  Now The Red Hook Houses are the lucky host to a grand new collaboration which strives to set new standards and meanings for our community and for our complex times.  Its success will be measured like Rivera’s masterpiece by the relationships it establishes with history. The official  unveiling of this complex collaborative project by the  Public Housing Community Fund, Artolution, a non-profit arts promotor and Snapchat, the tech giant, along with Red Hook West Resident Association and Red Hook local students and teachers took place on a sunny May 29th with a big celebration. The mural’s  impressive scale is slightly mitigated by the too nearby handball court fence but the size and color is awe inspiring.  Almost thirty feet tall and a hundred feet long the mural depicts two generations observing and reifying  a dream Red Hook populated by a diversity of people and nature. Two large yellow orbs connect the background and are stitched together with the foreshortened diagonal structure of a busy waterfront pier. The  sun and moon  give solar charge to the various elements and help compose and unify the  matrix..  A 16’ high bird’s flight symbolizes our shared and uncertain future.  There is something for everyone here, especially the younger audience to which the work seems addressed, incorporating a phone app to create customized animated versions to post to social media accounts. All in all a very ambitious project.  It is  titled “We Are Red Hook”  —Roger Bell