A view across the intersection at Astor Place in Manhattan, with a old, multi-story building with arched brown windows on the second floor. The ground floor, is home to a Starbucks with an enclosed glass dining area on the sidewalk. In the foreground, the traffic signal pole is covered with a mosaic by local East Village artist Jim Power, the “Mosaic Man.” Two taxis sit at the stop light in front of more traffic, while pedestrians cross the street.
The Astor Place Starbucks. Photo by mizinformation, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Every week, Artnet News brings you Wet Paint, a gossip column of original scoops. If you have a tip, email Annie Armstrong—who’s spending her summer in Los Angeles—at aarmstrong@artnet.com.

A FOND FAREWELL TO THE ASTOR PLACE STARBUCKS

You know the saying: There are chapels everywhere for those with the eyes to see. A fine example is the Astor Place Starbucks, which suddenly announced its closure this past weekend. Given the art world’s high-taste reputation, it’s been a bit surprising to me how many of you have been pouring one out for a branch of a corporate coffee chain. The tributes and remembrances just keep coming.

“I met Louise Bourgeois at this Starbucks after I got kicked out of a class at Cooper Union,” the artist Jeanette Hayes lamented on her X account. “I introduced myself, told her what happened & we chilled! She died the next year. RIP SB, I’ll spin The Cube for you later.” (For the uninitiated, she was referring to Tony Rosenthal‘s beloved 1967 sculpture Alamo, which passersby can rotate on its axis, or for the truly passionate, take up residence in.)

That’s a pretty cool sit-down, if you ask me. But it was far from the only one. In his 2002 New Yorker profile of the reclusive artist David Hammons, critic Peter Schjeldahl seems to suggest that the two met up there. “At a Starbucks in Cooper Square one recent evening, I waited in vain to meet David Hammons,” Schjeldahl writes. (For the non-Manhattanites: Cooper Square and Astor Place are right next to each other.) He goes on to say that “it turned out that he was waiting for me at another Starbucks, across the square.”

I spoke with many artists who went to Cooper Union (whose names I’ll keep secret), and they confessed that the coffee shop had two key functions: as a place for a low-key drug deal and as a safe place for a quick cry between crits. It was “somehow both chaos and refuge,” Rick Cappelazzo, a director of the advisory Art Intelligence Global, told me.

I live about a block away, and I will admit that I probably only walked in once—I’m a Mudspot loyalist—but I am proud to tout the area’s rich cultural heritage. Gary Indiana’s 1989 novel Horse Crazy begins with its protagonist near a drugstore a block from Cooper Square, hoping to see the artist he is in love with, who is a block away. Also, the fabled “Ninth Street Show” was held just a short walk from the Starbucks in 1951, and the redoubtable McSorley’s Old Ale House sits just off Astor Place.

The Astor Place Starbucks opened in 1995, six years after Horse Crazy published, but it is tempting to imagine its wild, young characters milling about Starbucks and the Kmart that used to be across the street. (Critic Jerry Saltz eulogized its closure in 2021. And he did not frequent the Starbucks, he told me. “Went once and had to wait so long, I paid and left,” he said, presumably grasping one of his beloved Big Gulp iced coffees from 7-Eleven.)

Jamian Juliano-Villani also has some history with the neightborhood. “I’d be on so much Adderall, walking around at night, shopping at the Kmart across the street, and when I was really depressed I’d go to that Starbucks,” she told Wet Paint. “This was during my first show at JTT, I had a studio in SoHo at the time.”

Downtown veterans will recall that the electroclash/art rock band Fischerspooner even staged a legendary performance of their first song, “Indian Cab Driver,” at the Starbucks. (The event gets a big nod in Lizzie Goodman’s 2017 indie-rock oral history Meet Me in the Bathroom.)

“GOODBYE @starbucks Astor Place NYC!!!” Casey Spooner soliloquized in an Instagram post that includes a photo of the hair extensions that he wore during the performance. “The birthplace of the first @fischerspooner performance August 27, 1998.”

Over the past quarter-century, the Starbucks has more than done its duty, and so I’ll pour out a Frappuccino, hoping that its legacy endures.

HARPER’S GOES NHL

Jacob Trouba, Landing Pond, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Harper’s.

It is now August, and I am delighted to see my inbox fill up with notices of galleries taking several weeks off for summer vacations. It’s well-deserved!

However, New York dealer Harper Levine is taking a very different approach to the usual summer slowdown, and instead just welcomed a newcomer to our art world: artist Jacob Trouba, who also happens to be the captain of the New York Rangers hockey team. His show on West 22nd Street in Chelsea, “Landing My Mark,” opened yesterday.

“Everyone can have their opinions, but it’s something I enjoy doing,” Trouba told me over the phone. “The greatest feeling is when you finish a painting, and feel proud of it.” He began painting four years ago as a hobby,

Twelve artworks are in the exhibition—11 paintings and one installation composed of used hockey gear. The paintings suggest Yves Klein‘s body prints by way of Wayne Gretzky. Trouba dons his hockey gear, which is covered in paint, and throws himself at the canvas.

“The brushwork was so frustrating to me, because it was something that I truly couldn’t do,” he told me. “But then I finally came across Yves Klein, and I thought, ‘That works for me! I can be the artist and the tool!’” In the painting above, you can see the clear curve of a hockey stick’s impact.

“On the ice, I’m a physical, kind of angry and mean person, and that’s not at all who I am,” Trouba said, explaining that his hybrid art practice and hockey exercise has helped him get in touch with a more tender, creative side of himself. “Art is a way to put on my gear and not go into that mindset, and be more thoughtful and creative,” he said. “I do enjoy the physical part of hockey and I always have. It’s my chance to be a little kid who loves hockey again, and do it my own way.”

“I’m pretty sure Jacob is the first artist from a major sport to have a Chelsea exhibition,” Levine said.

The pieces, priced between $22,000 to $32,000, are only on view through August 23. Catch it while you can!

WE HEAR 


My favorite activation of Charli XCX’s broad-sweeping “brat” campaign has to be art-handling company Hangman’s announcement for its Armory Week shuttles… Speaking of pop music, I am certainly hearing a lot of Issy Wood’s wonderful new album Accidental American, which was released earlier this week… Alec Baldwin‘s podcast Art Fraud (which he executive produced with private dealer Andy Terner) is apparently in development talks at Netflix with screenwriter Wells Tower… Parker Gallery is leaving its Los Feliz mansion behind for a tony new spot on Melrose Avenue, priced at a cool $4 million… Hauser and Wirth just announced an upcoming show at its West Hollywood space inspired by Steve Martin‘s classic 1991 Los Angeles satire L.A. Story, featuring artworks by legends of Tinsel Town like David Hockney, Mark Bradford, and Ed Ruscha. Hauser staffers Ingrid Schaffner and Mike Davis are curating “in dialogue” with Martin… Printed Matter has mysteriously canceled its book fair in Los Angeles (New York is still on the books, so I’ll see you at the old Dia building in Chelsea)… There is a new series of exclusive billiards games going on in L.A., where the cost of entry is to bring along a painter as your plus one…

PARTY OF THE WEEK 

A performance by Robson Catalunha at the Watermill Benefit. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Just in case you can’t tell from the tonal shift in the column (these L.A. editions are intended to be read with a Lebowski-esque lilt), I’ve been having a pretty nice time out here on the West Coast. However, my reverie was broken up this weekend by an unwelcome jolt of FOMO, as photos from the annual Watermill Center benefit clouded my Instagram feed.

“It was exhilarating,” artist Patia Borja told me. “An art aficionado’s dream come true!” 

For those who haven’t attended the glitzy Hamptons affair before, it is markedly different from your usual gala out East, as the art center’s founder, director Robert Wilson, makes sure to bring in some delightfully unsettling performances for the cocktail portion of the evening. This year’s offerings included a 20-minute spoken-word performance by Mykki Blanco, an appearance by the elusive Solange Knowles, a remarkable installation of a clock suspended in the air by Alicja Kwade, and in the true spirit of Watermill, a performer (Brazilian artist Robson Catalunha) in pig makeup, sipping a martini. My hat is off to you, Mr. Wilson.

Something odd always seems to happen at the event, whether it’s curator Stacey Engman getting into a physical altercation over her NFT collection (a Wet Paint classic), or running into Isabella Rossellini in the gardens and not being sure if she’s performing an artwork or not.

In short, it’s a fun party, and I wish I could have been there. Next summer…