Met Museum's Guards Show Don't Just Watch: They Paint, Too

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Mar 8th 2010 at 5:02AM

The Upper West Side of Manhattan was once again home to an exciting and unique art exhibition last week. 25CPW, a temporary art gallery occupying a vacant retail space on Central Park West hosted an art show for a unique group within the Metropolitan Museum of Art: the guards. It turns out that some of the people protecting the masterpieces on the other side of Central Park also like to create, and from what I saw on Thursday night, when I attended the opening, they are pretty damned good at it.

The Thursday night opening also included the launch of Sw!pe Magazine: Guards' Matter, an art journal that accompanied the exhibition.

On display were paintings, drawings, photographs and other pieces. The styles varied but were displayed intelligently, preventing contrasting styles from crowding each other and leaving each artist enough space for his work to stand out. Nelson Diaz, an artist and friend who attended the how with me, was as electrified as I was – both by the works on display and the energy in the 25CPW space.

You can view the NY Times photo gallery here.

The next 25CPW event is on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 night at 6:00 PM, when the Afghan Art Auction will be held to benefit the George Dritsas Anthropos Fund. The fund was created to help refugees in transition, so do find a way to open your wallet. The money raised will also be used to help the Afghan Women Council, which seeks to assist women and children inside Afghanistan.

From the inaugural event at 25CPW:

Gallery: 10 from 25: Emerging Artists using Photography