The Federico García Lorca Mural #4

Located on the NE corner of Knickerbocker Avenue and Stockholm Street, this mural follows a similar format of the previous three Lorca Murals; it includes the concluding stanza of Lorca’s poem as well as a portrait of the poet. It also includes an iconic view of the cityscape spanned by the Brooklyn Bridge. The earlier murals present earlier stanzas of the poem and isolated features of Lorca’s face: his eyes, mouth and an ear. Each mural also contains imagery determined via the artists’ interactions with community residents and workers. In this mural, it’s a map of Bushwick with dots representing people’s homes. Other community-driven images include maps of the world and Puerto Rico dotted with countries and towns of origin as well as a huge American flag whose white stripes are filled with over forty flags representing the birth countries of Bushwick’s residents and workers.

Bushwick is primarily inhabited by people of Latino heritage — most are immigrants, many long established, others recently arrived — as well as young emerging artists. Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) lived in New York for nine months from June 1929 through March 1930. He shared the loneliness and alienation experienced by many immigrants new to the city, and these feelings are expressed in this poem and others written during his stay. Lorca also saw much that was wrong with New York, and his work is filled with surreal images that speak to the ills that still exist today: slums, poverty, racism and violence.

The Lorca Murals’ creative team includes Camille Perrottet (mural designer and lead artist), Jane Weissman (project director and artist), artists Jules Hollander, Kayla Welbanks and Nick Pelafas as well as several volunteer painters.

Established in 1983, Artmakers is an artist-run, politically-oriented community mural organization that works in collaboration with neighborhood organizations to create high quality public art relevant to residents’ lives, work and con

Additional Websites: http://www.lorcamurals.blogspot.com