All the World’s a Canvas

Eduardo Kobra’s Street Art Pays Homage to Cultural Icons

As famous as New York is for the priceless artwork housed in its many prestigious, expertly curated museums, it’s equally as famous for its rich array of street art climbing along the city’s facades and nestling in its neighborhoods. While these larger-than-life works of art can often seem to spontaneously materialize as part of the city’s magical quality, the stories of the very real artists behind these works are often just as compelling as the works themselves.

Enter Eduardo Kobra. Born in 1976 in a neighborhood on the outskirts of São Paulo, Brazil, Kobra became interested in graffiti art in his early teens. He began his art career by illegally tagging walls on the streets of São Paulo and was highly influenced by both hip-hop culture and books chronicling the rise of street and subway art in New York. Completely self-taught, Kobra found inspiration in the styles of famous avant-garde artists such as Banksy, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Diego Rivera, Eric Grohe, and Andy Warhol.

Kobra has since gone on to earn international fame for his artwork. He’s completed projects on 5 continents, in over 40 cities. His personal style is wholly unique and unmistakable, incorporating rainbow-colored, geometric patterns that create a striking, kaleidoscopic effect. His vibrant color palettes are often integrated with black-and-white hyper-realistic versions of the subjects he’s painting—many of his murals are in fact reimaginings of actual photographs.

Kobra’s subjects routinely include historical figures, activists, great thinkers, and pop culture icons. Of the 19 murals Kobra currently has on display in New York, he depicts the likes of Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Elvis Presley, C-3PO, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and Jimi Hendrix, among many others. Kobra’s murals often provide social commentary, pay homage to an iconic figure, or both. His pieces frequently address social issues, centering on themes such as peace, tolerance, violence, race, class conflict, immigration, and technology.

The best part for us at Barton is that we don’t have to go very far to see some of Kobra’s incredible work—three of his murals are within walking distance of our New York office. And they’re all pretty stunning. See for yourself…

TITLE: “GENIUS IS TO BIKE RIDE”

SUBJECT: Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist

WHERE: 48th Street & 3rd Avenue

CREATED: September 2018

Original photo taken by California Institute of Technology trustee Ben Meyer on February 6, 1933, in Santa Barbara, California.

WHAT’S IT’S ABOUT:

Cycling was reportedly a favorite pastime of this eccentric genius. In a letter written to his son in 1930, Einstein mused that, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” It’s also rumored that Einstein first conceived of the theory of relativity while riding his bike, alluded to in the mural by the bike’s front plate reading “peace=heart 2 ,” an equation mimicking Einstein’s famous “E=mc 2 .” This piece was allegedly also Kobra’s way of weighing in on a debate regarding installing more bike lanes in the city after a spike in cyclist deaths.

TITLE: “THE BRAVES OF 9/11”

SUBJECT: Michael Bellantoni, FDNY Firefighter

WHERE: 49th Street & 3rd Avenue

CREATED: September 2018

Original photo taken by New York Post freelance photographer Matthew McDermott on September 11, 2001, at Ground Zero.

WHAT’S IT’S ABOUT:

In honor of the emergency personnel who risked their lives responding to the tragic events of 9/11, this 7-story-tall mural was unveiled on the tragedy’s 17th anniversary. It depicts real-life firefighter Michael Bellantoni kneeling to rest amidst the chaos and destruction of the September 11th attacks. The number “343” on the firefighter’s helmet honors the 343 New York Fire Department members who lost their lives that day, while the Twin Towers are incorporated into the background as the white stripes on the American flag. The piece is meant to honor and remember those who were willing to sacrifice everything, while also expressing a message of hope, life, and restoration.

TITLE: “PEACE”

SUBJECT: Roy Lichtenstein, American pop artist

WHERE: 44th Street & 3rd Avenue

CREATED: August 2018

WHAT’S IT’S ABOUT:

This piece is unique in that it merges Kobra’s signature colorful, kaleidoscopic style with Lichtenstein’s own. Lichtenstein was a prolific pop artist in the 1960s, his style mimicking that of advertisements, comic strips, and cartoons. He popularized the use of speech balloons, Ben-Day dots (like those typically produced by a mechanical printer), bold primary colors, and outlined panels in his artwork. The effect of Lichtenstein’s techniques was to make his artwork look like something mass produced, for the purpose of satirizing the tyranny of modern consumerism.