Mary Boone

Macys

When I was showing in The East Village, I was always trying to think of ways to advertise my shows short of spending money, which I didn't have.

For a couple of my shows, I took a large painting to Soho, leaned it up against a building and stood in front of it handing out invitations to my show across town. I met one of my biggest collectors that way. Over the years, I've probably sold fifty paintings to him or people he introduced me to.

Another time, I was walking by Macys and I thought it might be cool to hang my work in the windows with the mannequins. 24-hour exposure.

So I found out who did the windows and floated my idea to her. I showed her slides. She didn't respond to the paintings nearly as much as she did my cityscape drawings. She asked if I could do them large, like five or six feet?

Three weeks later they were hanging all along 34th Street. I think the theme painted on the windows was "New York Style". Each window had a small sign in it stating my name and gallery affiliation.

A year or two later, I had a drawing show in The East Village and a woman at the opening asked me if I was the guy who showed in Macys windows?  She said that she was the switchboard operator there and that she had been inundated with calls asking who did the drawings, but that she didn't have a clue.

People in cars!  Why didn't I think of that?  They couldn't see the small signs!

Swell.

On the bright side, one of the curators at The Whitney ended up buying one of the drawings and, I was told, she hung it in her office there. So I moved from the outside to the inside.

Tim Folzenlogen
MB Modern, March 2001