超ミニ絵画の宝探し、ブルックリンでアーティストが週末主催

【ニューヨークＡＦＰ＝時事】米ニューヨークのブルックリンで毎週、ミニチュア絵画の「宝探し」が行われている。アーティストのスティーブ・ワスターバル氏（４０）が、ＳＮＳを通じて呼び掛けているものだ。（写真は小さな風景画を完成させたスティーブ・ワスターバル氏。米ニューヨークのブルックリンで）
　ワスターバル氏は、グリーンポイント地区のミニチュア風景画をこの３年間で８０枚ほど手掛け、街のどこかに隠してきた。ポーランド系住民が多いこの地区は最近、若手のクリエーターが移り住み、しゃれた雰囲気になっている。
　「自分の作品を外へ出したかったのです。壁に貼ったり、ストリートに置いたりしたかったのです」とワスターバル氏。「ほんの小さな絵にしようと思ったのを覚えています。それを好きなだけ隠しておいて、みんなに見つけてもらえるように」
　同氏は毎週末、小さな風景画をそこに描かれた場所で撮影した写真をインスタグラムに投稿する。告知の時間は決まっていないが、場所はいつもグリーンポイントのどこかだ。
　投稿から数分後には十数人が、その日のテーマの場所に到着し、壁の裏や非常階段などあちこちを探し始める。
　ワスターバル氏は近くにいる時もあれば、いない時もある。助言を求められれば、インスタグラムのダイレクトメッセージで参加者たちにヒントを送る。
　絵の大きさは、５センチ×３．８センチほど。１時間ほどで描き上がるが、小さな作品は絶対に販売しないという。
　「見つけてもらうしかありません。自慢したくなる小さなトロフィーのようなものです」とワスターバル氏。今回、隠し場所に選んだのは、辺りで人気のピザ店「パウリージーズ」の片隅だった。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/06/14-12:19）

Filmmaker Zack Obid trembles with excitement: he has just found a miniature work of art during a treasure hunt that an American artist organizes every week in his Brooklyn neighborhood.
Steve Wasterval estimates that in the last three years he has painted and hidden about 80 tiny landscape drawings of Greenpoint, an area with a large Polish community seen as increasingly hip in recent times with young creatives moving in.
I really wanted to give my art away. I wanted to put it up on walls and out in the street, says Wasterval, 40, at his studio inside a former Faber Castell pencil factory.
I remember thinking they should be tiny paintings so I can hide them and people can find them and I can find as many as I want, he adds.
Typically, every weekend at an unspecified time, Wasterval publishes on his Instagram account a photo of a landscape in front of the spot that inspired the work, always in Greenpoint.
Within minutes, a dozen people arrive at the scene and start looking for the work everywhere, from behind a wall to on a fire escape.
Sometimes, Wasterval is close by, sometimes not. If asked for help, he sends the treasure hunters clues through direct messages on Instagram.
The paintings are about five centimeters by 3.8 centimeters (2 inches by 1.5 inches). He finishes them in around an hour and says he will never sell them.
Every week people message me that they want to buy one, commission them. No, never, never, insists Wasterval.
You have to find them. They're like little trophies people show off.
Wasterval wants to document his neighborhood as it transforms, socialize with his neighbors and have fun.
- Fun -
It's also a way for him to disseminate his larger artworks, typically 60 x 90 cm and 75 x 100 cm, which sell for $2,000 and $3,000 respectively.
The idea is to keep doing it like forever, he said of the hunts.
It's a marketing thing but it is a fun one because it doesn't feel like one. I want to keep it like that.
This time, Wasterval had chosen to paint the corner of the popular neighborhood pizzeria Paulie Gee's.
In a park, among children playing hide and seek, he hides the small painting under a flower pot.
A couple of minutes later, Obid, a 27-year-old documentary filmmaker who lives a block away, arrives.
He frantically searches everywhere as other people start to turn up, some on bicycles. Every few seconds they stop to check their phones for new clues from Wasterval.
After about ten minutes, Obid shouts and laughs as he finds the painting -- his fifth in three years.
It's a piece of art that means a lot to you, he says, noting that not only is it original but it is also of home.
Lisa Llanes, a 38-year-old graphic designer, recently won two hunts but was too late this time.
They are such cute little pieces of art! she says.
Wasterval hopes to hold an exhibition with all the minis, as he calls them, on loan from the winners of the hunts.
He also plans to expand the project to the rest of the city.
People ask me to go to different neighborhoods. I'm going to extend the radius slowly, he says.