36feature so you’re putting it in context,” Flageul said. The show served as a method of healing and letting go of pain and looking ahead to the future, she added. “It is about what really happened at 5Pointz. It’s about our feelings, our frustration and our reflection on what’s being done in New York City,” Flageul said. “My hope is that the audience is going to be able to relate to some of the pieces and some of the messages.” Cohen, who dealt with the loss of 5Pointz and his mother all within one month from each other, said although some of his pieces express the anger and frustration he felt when he woke up November 19, the process of creating the pieces for the show was also therapeutic. “The exhibit to me was a good closure and way to vent, so I found it helped me to relate my feelings to the people that knew of 5Pointz and are devastated by its whitewash,” Cohen said. “Art is the best way to get your point across. Everyone could interpret it in their own kind of way but it is easily understood.” He took his signature light bulbs, which normally are yellow and known to be funny, and made them white for the show to depict the “ghoulish” tone of the whitewash. One of the last pieces he finished for the exhibit was a colorful collaboration between him and artist Shiro, which shows one of the female artist’s iconic characters blowing light bulb bubbles expressing hope and a happy look into the future. “This is how we communicate best. This is what brings us all together and it did again,” he said. “Over there the walls were what helped tie us together and here are the canvases that are tying us together. The building was beautiful but it was the artwork that defined the building.” Each piece in the show is on sale, including wine bottles, donated by Gianna Cerbone-Teoli of Manducatis Rustica, featuring labels designed by Cohen. “Whitewash” will run through June 8. “5Pointz was kind of the heart of Long Island City,” Flageul said. “It was not just a building; these were truly pages of a diary.”
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