In recent days, the famous Brazilian muralist Eduardo Kobra, 47, worked day and night to finish by September 15 a new mural measuring 45 x 78 feet (3,606 square feet) on one of the outer walls of the United Nations headquarters in New York. The wall is located at E 42nd St and 1st Ave. According to Kobra, this is the first time the UN has authorized an artistic intervention on the outer walls of its complex in its 70 years of existence.
The unprecedented initiative to bring street art to the UN wall was approved by the UN Committee, which recognized that Kobra’s art “aligns with the ideals of the United Nations.”
The mural arrives at a very important time. The seventy-seventh session of the UN General Assembly takes place from September 13 to 27 under the theme “A Turning Point: Transformative Solutions for Interconnected Challenges.” Representatives from 193 countries, mostly world leaders, will discuss topics such as post-Covid reconstruction, the war in Ukraine, sustainability, and human rights.
“After receiving the invitation, I researched the theme of the General Assembly and realized that it converges with issues that increasingly form part of my work, especially sustainability. So, I created a piece of art where a father hands the Earth to his daughter, trying to contribute to the reflection on what kind of planet we want to leave for future generations,” explains the artist.
Born in 1975 in São Paulo, Kobra has become one of the most recognized muralists today, with works on all 5 continents.
Since the Rio Olympics in 2016, he holds the record for the largest graffiti mural in the world – first with ‘Ethnicities’, painted to commemorate the event, covering 2,500 square meters; a record surpassed by himself in 2017, with a work in homage to chocolate that occupies a wall of 5,742 square meters along the Castello Branco Highway in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo.
One of his most famous works is ‘The Kiss’, created in 2012 on the High Line in New York – erased four years later. It is a colorful reinterpretation of the image taken by American photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995) on August 13, 1945, when people took to the streets to celebrate the end of World War II.
But his first mural outside Brazil was in Lyon, France, in 2011. At the time, he had been invited to illustrate a wall in a neighborhood undergoing revitalization. He used his “Walls of Memory” approach to help enhance the historical value of the area. Since then, he has painted in countries such as Spain, Italy, Norway, England, Malawi, India, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, as well as several North American cities.
If you are in New York, don’t miss the opportunity to see the work of this great artist. The mural at the UN headquarters will be on display for about 3 months, until December 2022.