The New York State Pavilion (NYSP), from the 1964 World’s Fair has been repurposed and renamed Pavilion of Pop Art, (PoPA).
As part of the overall construction of the NYSP, Philip Johnson hired Andy Warhol to install a series of Pop Artists work onto the exterior of the Theaterama. A total of ten pieces of Pop Art were displayed outside the Theaterama and served to highlight the contemporary artists taste of its architect Philip Johnson and the state’s governor, Nelson Rockefeller. Artist such as Robert Indiana, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein works were on display.
Andy Warhol who was hired to assemble the collection of artist and work decided that his piece would be very specific to New York City. Warhol’s “Thirteen Most Wanted Men” was a series of mug shots from the New York City Police Department. The mug shots composed a canvas, which was twenty feet by twenty feet in size. Warhol’s piece was painted over before the fair opened by orders of Robert Moses. This is the tipping point where a conflict of interest between all the parties involved began. Warhol being inventive as always, created a silkscreen portrait of Robert Moses. This portrait in the form of a terrazzo mosaic floor will act as the centerpiece of PoPA.
The Moses portrait represents both a radical piece of Pop Art and a memorial to the fair’s creator.
PoPa will itself become a giant work of Pop Art reflecting its overall new color scheme. Additional works will be on the mezzanine level of the structure as a series of temporary exhibitions.
The Radical Preservation of NYSP and its transformation into PoPA establish a new museum typology. PoPA is the first all outdoor museum in New York City and will become a precedent for other modern urban ruins.
Admission to PoPA is free.
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