This artist brings life & love to NYC streets
Art is everywhere in New York City. Sure, there’s a lot of it in downtown galleries and uptown museums. But you can find it on our streets, too. Practically every available surface in the city can, and often does, become a canvas for professionals, amateurs, and every type of artist in between. This free, accessible art is really a cornerstone of vibrant public space. It can enliven our streets, provoke thoughts and emotions, and create community in shared spaces.
Artist Timur is doing just that with his work. Inspired by the dark, tumultuous times of the pandemic’s early days, Timur took to New York’s deserted streets to seek — and build — connection. We spoke with Timur about what it’s like to make art in public space, what he’s learned about New Yorkers, and how street art can be liberating.
Tell us a little about yourself and your art practice.
My name is TIMUR, I am a New York-based visual artist. New York's been my home since I immigrated here from Uzbekistan in 1995. I feel that it's truly the place where I was always meant to be in. I attribute it to the fact that everything that is important to me, both as a human and as an artist, can be found here. It's also the quality of people I seek out – kind, ambitious, creative adventure-seekers who live to make cool things despite difficulties. There is absolutely a lot of struggle and unfairness that I've encountered along the way. But overall, the city genetically has all the right components that makes it attractive to creators and the people who appreciate what artists are trying to do. My art underwent a string of transformations over the years. I find that it is influenced by my life's circumstances. After college, I spent a lot of years working in advertising. As a result, my art was shaped by the visual language of Design and Popular Culture, utilizing concepts such as: Statistics, Graphic Iconography and Symbols. And my approach too was very conceptually driven and structured, just like in advertising.
Tell us about this project and how it came to be.
It all came to a head in the Spring of 2020. I was laid off from a stable job at the advertising agency of 11 years. After the initial shock wore off, I grabbed my trusty camera and started photographing that very surreal time in the city's history – the unprecedented empty stillness of the Pandemic, coupled with the added destruction caused by the protests in the wake of George Floyd's death. Out of all the NYC's neighborhoods, SoHo became the epicenter. Almost overnight, once bright and trendy stores and restaurants boarded up in anticipation of more protests. This turned the neighborhood into a staggering display of bare plywood boards, reinforcing the feeling of hopelessness that was already triggered by the Pandemic scare. One sunny weekend morning in June, I was in SoHo photographing all of this, when I stumbled upon a group of people who had a long history in the neighborhood. Their idea was to bring life and art back, the way it once was. They branded themselves Art2Heart and invited anyone who wanted to join them in beautifying the neighborhood to come out and paint, providing free food and art supplies, among other things. For the next month, I spent painting along with them, as well as helping them with design, photography, and advertising. This was my first foray into the world of street art, and I could not believe that it took me so long to discover the liberating joy of it. By the middle of the Summer, the group fulfilled their wonderful mission, and disbanded. However, by then I had already been hooked by the freedom and accessibility of making art on the street, that I didn't want to stop. Deciding to keep going, I made a large stencil of the symbol that I first created back in the Spring. The symbol – "Viral-Love" – was originally part of the self-initiated PSA poster series that I made to encourage people to be kind to one another. As many would recall, in the beginning we were all under the fog of fear and stress due to this novel virus that was costing many people their lives, while costing others their livelihoods. That's how the "Spreading Love" project was born. The concept was simple: to travel the city during the Pandemic and paint the symbol in open public spaces, spreading love and reducing stress on people's minds through art.
What did you love most about the project?
This project did many positive things for me. First, it gave me the sense of a mission as I was struggling with my own issues, while figuring out a new and meaningful career path, and figuring out what was most important to me now and in the future. While art is at the core of my existence, I always had to have a day job to pay the bills. And second, it was the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the people whom I encountered through the work. It was that sense of connection with perfect strangers based on our common humanity that made the project rewarding and meaningful.
Windows to Love. Bleecker Tower commission: 2021-Present, NoHo. © TIMUR York
How would you say your work contributed to the vibrancy of the block and the neighborhood?
One of the proudest highlights of this project was the Bleecker Tower commission in NoHo, in 2021. The two amazing women, whom I must give a shout out to – Vivien and Marcella – who lived in and co-owned the building, after seeing some of my work, reached out to me on social media and offered me to fill their still black, boarded-up windows from 2020, with my art. This enabled me to expand the reach of the project on a larger scale and share it with the neighborhood for an extended period of time. Over the 20-month period, the exhibit was seen and interacted with by countless New Yorkers and visitors. While working on the commision and being on the block daily, I first-hand experienced the kindness of people in the neighborhood as a response to what I was doing. There was a woman I never knew, who worked across Broadway at the hair salon, who went out and bought me lunch, after seeing me work without taking a break the entire afternoon. The man walking his dog spontaneously handed me $5, while expressing his best wishes to me and my activity. I made new friends and had uplifting conversations with people I never met before. And almost every time when I would return to fix the art from tagging, I spotted someone filming or taking photos of themselves or their friends with the work. To the artist whose project directly involves the idea of love and human connection, that was akin to the concept coming full circle – Love begets Love.
Cheering the completion of the Bleecker Tower's "Windows to Love" commission with Marcella and Vivien. 2021, NoHo. Photo Credit: Farrell Lecorps
If you could do a public space project anywhere in NYC, where would it be?
I would be thrilled to do a public space project if the right opportunity presented itself! The actual location is less important, as long as it is seen by a lot of people and is not something that would disappear too soon. This is one of the gripes I have with street art – it is very ephemeral. Here today, gone tomorrow... When you put so much of your time and effort into something, you'd like to see it stay there for a while. Similarly, I've been contemplating translating the Viral-Love idea into a permanent public sculpture. I have already drawn up mockups and a basic plan, all I need is real backing to make this a reality. The sculptural rendering is specifically meant to bring people together, by design.
Tell us what livable streets and sidewalks are to you.
These are essential elements of urban life in the 21st century. Especially with the ever-increasing human footprint and congestion in large and dense cities like NYC. What makes cities livable and desirable are things like: quality of life, safety, and creative means of achieving those goals. At the core of it all are the people, and we must take that into account.
Collaboration with the NYPL – Hudson Park Branch, on view through February 28th. Library managers: Miranda Murray and Emil Allakhverdov. Photo Credit: Dwayne Sandy
What’s next for you?
Now and through February 28th, I am very proud to share a collaboration with the NYPL – the Hudson Park branch. It's the extension of the "Windows to Love" exhibit in NoHo. In it we are integrating a visual story of the branch since its opening in 1906, through collage of photographs, maps, and other related pieces from their archives. Aside from that, I have so many things I want to achieve, and complete... For example, I would love to team up with a very serious filmmaker and producer, and turn the many hours of raw video footage I have of the "Spreading Love" project into a serious documentary film, capturing the story, the journey and the process of painting the symbol during the Pandemic era in NYC. I will also eventually develop all of the photos I captured during that unforgettable time and will turn them into a book. And above all, I want to get to a point where I am finally able to make meaningful and stable living with my art. It's the most satisfying feeling, doing what you are meant to be doing!