Ocularpation: Stripping down Wall Street (NSFW Photos Update)
At approximately 7 am this morning, 50 people descended on Broadway.
They looked like bankers, assistants, vendors, and police officers.
By 7:03 am they were naked.
By 7:05 am they were clothed, disappeared and the performance, the vision of Zefrey Throwell, was finished.
CLICK HERE FOR NSFW NUDE OCULARPATION IMAGES
“I’m trying to illuminate a dark cranny in the financial world,” said Throwell, 35, an artist and self-proclaimed “troublemaker” who lives in Chinatown.
Throwell organized the performance after he watched his mother lose her entire life savings in the stock market crash and then saw Wall Street remain the same.
“Its been three years and nothing has changed,” Throwell said. “It’s still mysterious.”
Throwell is a Lower Manhattan Cultural Center artist in resident and the piece, Ocularpation, is the result of years of trying to understand the lack of transparency in the financial world.
Greenpoint resident Vanessa Marie, 26, identified with Throwell’s message.
“His mother lost a lot of money in the stock market and my father did as well,” she said
The performers populated Wall Street from Trinity Church down to the Water at South Street and came from all walks of life.
“Some work on Wall Street and are fed up with how it operates,” Throwell said. “There are people who have been swindled and other people who just like to take their clothes off in public.”
Angelo Sarango, 32, a window cleaner from New Jersey was working on Wall Street when he saw the performance.
“It didn’t look like art,” Sarango said. “People do that all the time on the subway.”
At least three of the performers were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and “exposure,” according to Throwell. He bailed them out.
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