A vast new exhibition space opened in New York City this summer, with a show 18 months in the making. Works by 103 street artists from around the world, mostly big murals, are painted directly onto the gallery’s walls.

It is one of the largest shows of such pieces ever mounted in one place, and many of the contributors are significant figures in both the street-art world and the commercial trade that now revolves around it.

The gallery, whose existence was a closely guarded secret, closed on the night it opened.

Known as the Underbelly Project, the space defies every norm of the gallery scene. Collectors can’t buy the art. The public can’t see it.

That’s because the exhibition was mounted, illegally, in a long-abandoned subway station. In addition to approaching the Sunday Times Magazine of London, the curators, street artists themselves, offered a reporter a tour on condition that no details that might help identify the site be published. They agreed to be identified only by pseudonyms.

Workhorse, in his late 30s, is a wellknown street artist with gallery representation; PAC, younger by a decade, is less established but familiar (under a different name) to followers of urban-art blogs. The two came up with the idea for the project in 2008.

The difficult process of getting to the Underbelly space suggested to PAC and Workhorse how challenging the project would be. Beyond the legal risks, Workhorse and PAC worried that given anxiety about terrorism in the subway, their project might lead to more serious charges.

But Workhorse said: “Where else do you see a creative person risking themselves legally, financially, physically and creatively?”

In recent years, he said, as the vogue for street art has led to “anything that could possibly appreciate in value being ripped off the street by those looking to cash in,” the old sense of adventure has faded. PAC and Workhorse saw the Underbelly Project as a way to recapture that energy . Workhorse called it “an eternal show without a crowd.”

To set up their secret gallery, they set some ground rules. Each artist would be limited to one visit, with four hours of working time. The artists were not allowed to go out for more materials if they ran out. (Workhorse and PAC supplied lighting in the form of camping lanterns. “We went through hundreds of batteries,” Workhorse said.) And in addition to their materials, the artists had to pay for their transportation, regardless of the distance.

Of the international artists approached, most were from Europe. But more contributors were American, among them wellknown names like Ron English (whose most recent work has been priced at up to $200,000), Swoon and Revok.

Patrick McNeil, of the Brooklyn collective Faile, received an e-mail from PAC, and signed on quickly. “It was really appealing because it sounded a little crazy,” he said.

For this reporter, the most arresting pieces in the show are those that are sinisterly in sync with the Hades-like space, among them skulls, a pair of huge rats and a set of typographical strokes by the British graffiti artist SheOne that resemble the skeletal scratchings of a Lascaux cave painter.

The curators said they thought the painted works could last two or three decades if left untouched. But even if the work was discovered by the transportation authority sooner than that, PAC said, “I like the fact that it’ll feel apocalyptic, because things will be deteriorating, and it’ll already be a memory.”

Police have since arrested 20 people for trying to enter the abandoned station, and posted officers at the site.


By JASPER REES