Kenkeleba House - Haring Mural

Kenkeleba House was founded in 1974 by Joe Overstreet, Corrine Jennings and Samuel C. Floyd. Located on New York City’s Lower East Side, it is a space dedicated to making room for marginalized voices. The two galleries within the House both strive to give space to African American artists – as well as the broader African Diaspora and other overlooked artists and perspectives. The galleries featured a dynamic Keith Haring mural, painted on an exit doorway, on plaster, drywall, metal and plywood substrate. EverGreene was hired to carefully remove, stabilize, and relocate the doorframe artwork – within the gallery. 

EverGreene conservators performed a detailed assessment, through site visits, images, and previous conservations, our team had collected enough information to commence the project and draw up a proposal.  We analyzed the composition of the doorway assembly and mural materials in order to determine a safe plan for extraction of the frame. We also observed points of damage on the mural to be addressed later during conservation treatment. Our team removed the components in various parts, using our preconstructed mobile cradle frame as support during relocation. The final phase of the project consisted of permanently stabilizing the substrate and painted artwork (taking special care of the plaster substrate which had suffered the most damage over time). We surface cleaned and removed accretions from the mural, made small fills in plaster and performed inpainting at paint losses with reversible conservation-grade materials of appropriate sheen.