painted sintra board

October 1998 - May 1999

at Henry Street Settlement Abrons Arts Center

Dan Witz, working with the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side, used an exterior wall of their playhouse to install Sticks--seven large paintings that made the wall look as though it was pierced with giant sharpened sticks. This temporary installation, according to Witz, symbolically protected the neighborhood from the commercial billboard advertisements seen so often on the city's public walls. With Sticks, Witz created a dialogue about the encroaching commercialism on seemingly all of New York's architecture. Created in the tradition of trompe-l'oeil murals, Witz considered Sticks to be a type of "home-grown defense" for his neighborhood.

Artist Bio
Dan Witz was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1957. He received his BFA from Cooper Union in New York in 1980. Since moving to New York's East Village in 1978, Witz has been an independent artistic voice in Lower Manhattan. He recently had solo exhibitions at DFN Gallery, New York (2003) and Clementine Gallery, New York (1998). His group exhibitions include Public Domain, Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago (2003); Buying Time: Nourishing Excellence, Sotheby's New York (2001); and Fifteen, NYFA Fellows at Deutsche Bank, New York (1999).

Sponsorship
Sticks was a project of the Public Art Fund, commissioned through In The Public Realm, a program of site-specific proposals and projects by New York artists.

In The Public Realm 1997 was supported by the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The Silverweed Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and friends of the Public Art Fund.

Location
Sticks was installed on the wall of the Harry De Jur Playhouse, located at the Henry Street Settlement Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street).