Faile’s new Williamsburg mural, “104 N. 7th” (all photos courtesy Vice)
Attention street art aficionados: a new public work by Faily has landed in Williamsburg! The piece, quite practically titled “104 N. 7th,” departs from the usual pop-art look the duo is best known for and features instead thousands of hand-painted, sculpted ceramic tiles covering the facade of a commercial building.
The project seems like a cross between “Temple,” the arresting and meticulously designed modern-day ruin they built for the Portugal Arte 10 Festival, and their more ubiquitous and linear murals. Interestingly, though, “104 N. 7th” appears to be fairly quiet and subtle, almost the opposite of their usual eye-popping graphics.
Detail of one of Faile’s tiles for the project
That style may have something to do with the location of the project. For “104 N. 7th,” Patrick and Patrick of Faile, who have their studio nearby, wanted to stay local. They chose the building based on its size and location — almost like a little visual poem on a beloved side street. The work was commissioned by Vice and 42Below Vodka, who are teaming up to host a coming out party for the work on Thursday night, April 26, starting at 8 pm at the Wythe Hotel. (RSVP here.) Vice also created a short documentary about the making of the piece, which will screen at the party.
This isn’t the first public work by Faile on view in the neighborhood. They’ve got a prayer wheel sculpture near their studio on N. 6th Street and another at N. 14th Street and Kent, one in a long line of their wheels that have mysteriously disappeared over the years. With “104 N. 7th,” it sounds like we’ve hit critical mass for a Faile Williamsburg walking tour.
