About the 'Pay It No Mind' mural honoring LGBTQ+ advocate Marsha P. Johnson outside the F train stop on 2nd Avenue

This new mural titled "Pay It No Mind" arrived this past weekend outside the F stop on Second Avenue at East Houston...



The work is a collaboration between Suriani, a visual artist based in Montréal, and Homo Riot.

It's part of an in-progress Queer Street Art documentary by photographer and filmmaker Daniel Albanese aka @dustyrebel for Pride Month. This piece honors LGBTQ advocate Marsha P. Johnson, a leader in the Stonewall uprising.

(Suriani’s imagine of Marsha P. Johnson is based on Richard Shupper’s studio portrait of Johnson from 1991, the year before her death.)



Albanese talked more about the mural in an interview published yesterday at Brooklyn Street Art:

This wall is actually the kick off to a series of Queer Street Art that will be coming to NYC for Pride Month. I have partnered with Art In Ad Places, Keep Fighting NYC, and other community based projects to create a queer alternative to the overwhelming flood of corporate pride events.

While not part of Reclaim Pride Coalition’s inaugural Queer Liberation March on June 30, I was inspired by the activists who have organized to bring the “Spirit of Stonewall” directly to the street, and who are keeping the focus on the continuing needs of the LGBTQ+ community.

The mural was also defaced short after its arrival on Second Avenue:

I know street art is ephemeral, and I also know that work that is unapologetically queer is especially targeted. So I knew it was coming, I just didn’t expect something that big and that fast in less than 30 hours. We made this piece as a community, for our community. We really wanted to start conversation about the issues that LGBTQ+ people face, and to honor the memory of Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall Riot. To have that important conversation cut short felt like a punch in the gut.

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In less than 30 hours from completion, New York’s only non-corporate sponsored, fully and unapologetically queer pride mural was destroyed. . But like Marsha, we PAY IT NO MIND . And rise again . . @homoriot @surianiart #homoriot #surianiart #marshapjohnson #payitnomind #suriani #queerliberation #stonewallwasariot #PassThatBrick #dustyrebelproduction #worldpride #queerstreetart #gaystreetart #nycstreetart #instagay #lgbtq #queerart #gayart

A post shared by TheDustyRebel (@dustyrebel) on Jun 3, 2019 at 9:14am PDT

Late last month, the de Blasio administration announced that it will create a permanent Greenwich Village monument to honor Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, founders of the Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries.