Photo: PJ Rountree. Courtesy of Storefront for Art and Architecture
Half-hidden counterfeit goods under the staircase installed by Shanzhai Lyric at Storefront for Art and Architecture.The exhibition’s cheeky subtitle, “You Can’t Beat a New York Original,” is lifted straight from a massive ad on the side of New Land Plaza. To complete the body swap between Storefront and the mini-mall, a banner above Storefront’s façade offers to sell “a premier 8 x 17 ft ad space.
Shanzhai Lyric also resurfaces a forgotten public-art proposal from the 1980s by Ming Fay, a New York artist who seemed to share their appreciation of street vending as a creative force. For, with oversize cast-bronze fruits — peach, pear, orange, and pomegranate, auspicious in Chinese culture — perched high atop stone or metal columns. At Storefront, Lin and Tatarsky have installed a couple of full-scale sculptural mock-ups and original paintings of the fruits lent by the octogenarian artist.
Neither the counterfeit trade nor the informal street vendors have disappeared entirely from Canal. But the thoroughfare, normally one of the neighborhood’s most crowded and coveted strips of real estate, has a large number of vacant storefronts, and over the past year, the Adams administration has stepped up enforcement against street vendors across the city,, parks like Washington Square, and the subway.
One of the remaining merchants at New Land Plaza is a feng shui consultant who goes by the name of Robert and says he was there for the 2008 bust. His interview with Tatarsky and Lin is featured in the newsprint publication that accompanies the exhibition. Asked if he thinks he can keep his business alive, he said, “If I’ve created good feng shui in my store, then I can stay. Even now, when everybody’s gone and closed up shop, I’ll try to stay longer.