Zbigniew Zolkowski,  known to his close circle of friends as ‘Joey Baby”,  was born in Poland in 1950.  Although tens of thousands of passerby have undoubtedly witnessed his art,  Zolkowski himself is all but invisible to the public.  Among street artists, however, Joey Baby was one of the first renegades who pioneered the street art movement by risking arrest and in some cases being jailed for criminal trespass. That said, by no means does Joey struggle in obscurity. Rather than struggle, Zolkowski exalts in his defiance of municipal authority by transforming the  industrial wastelands, deserted waterfronts  and empty lots of New York City into an exhibition space always open and always free to the public. 

 

Zbigniew Zolkowski finds, collects, and creates his trans-dimensional pieces by sifting through trash and scavenging the streets. His foraged work sets up a statement regarding the post-consumer wasteland, to be found on the curbside of urban society.  

 

Regrettably,  Joey’s artwork could not survive big corporate’s sustained attack on street culture.  At present, the city’s surveillance apparatus can identify street art and have its civil servants destroy it overnight, which in a way necessitated this exhibition.