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Issuance of: Change:
New York (AFP) – With nimble fingertips and childlike enthusiasm, Danny Cortez recreates the gritty, hip-hop-infused street scene of New York in miniature. However, starting out as his hobby, rap has made a name for himself in his community and is even profitable at Sotheby’s famous auction house.
“We are adults, but we have never stopped being children,” the 42-year-old artist told AFP. “Who hates toys? Who hates miniatures?”
As we speak from his workshop in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, he’s sitting among recycled items found on the street.
On his table lay a small replica of the worn and grubby façade of his current project. Near the brick window hung his basket of plastic bushels.
“This represents my childhood,” Cortez said, retouching the model in his preferred medium, polystyrene.
“Everything looked like this. Abandoned, empty, and lots of drugs in the area.”
From $30 to $10,000
One of his more recent creations is a modest Chinese restaurant with a shabby yellow sign and red and mauve brick walls covered in graffiti.
Standing outside the restaurant — the real Cortez, sporting a black jacket and baseball cap over his round face — he talks about how New York rapper Joel Ortiz, who grew up in the neighborhood, insisted on buying the model. He smiles and says, “Yo, I need that.”
price?
“Ten thousand dollars,” Cortez said, adding, “The first piece I sold was like $30, and I was very happy to get $30.”
Artists build collectibles based on the most mundane urban scenes, “the little things we pass by every day”, but collectively form the unique cityscape of New York.
“Just took off”
One of his first signature works was a rendering of a simple white commercial ice box. Located outside a corner grocery store, it has the word “ICE” in red block letters on the side and is often covered in graffiti. Cortez has meticulously recreated it. detail.
His repertoire also includes classic ice cream trucks like those in Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing.
His work resonates with nostalgia and frequently incorporates homages to legendary local rappers such as Notorious BIG and Wu-Tang Clan.
Cortes was not always an artist. He has worked in sales, construction, the homeless and he has worked in shelters.
But the pandemic changed his life and pushed him to take what used to be a fun pastime more seriously.
After he published his first work on social media, he said his work “became popular.”
Artistic label Mass Appeal, in partnership with rap legend Nas, commissioned a model of the Ghetto Blaster Boombox for the cover of DJ Premier’s mini-album (“Hip Hop 50: Vol. 1”) .
In March 2022, four Cortez works were sold at Sotheby’s hip-hop auction. They included a $2,200 ice cream truck.
And he built a miniature replica of an Atlanta restaurant for its owner, rapper 2 Chainz.
“Many changes”
But Cortez’s heart remains in Brooklyn.
Monica Lynch, former president of Tommy Boy Records and Sotheby’s auction consultant, said, “He had the dirty, gritty vibe that was the birthplace of so much ’90s-style hip-hop music. I really get it.
Through his work, Cortez said he wanted to document a place that “has a lot of change,” especially the Bushwick neighborhood. said it was fine.
“Even though Bushwick will always be Bushwick, I think it’s a good thing and I think it’s safer,” he said. “There are more chances.”
© 2022 AFP
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