AlwaysInformed: Veselkhiarascuro

Arthur Bovino — July 10, 2009

Charnick installing Veselkhiarascuro at the AlwaysHungryNY.com headquarters

Those of you who are fans of Veselka (restaurant page) may remember reading on Eater last August and Grub Street in January that Veselkhiarascuro, the iconic mural by Arnie Charnick, was going on sale. The restaurant’s planned 10-foot expansion through the back wall meant it would no longer fit. All you 24-hour pierogie-eaters need not fear however because the mural has found a wonderful home right here in AlwaysHungryNY.com’s headquarters.

It’s not everyday that an artist walks into your office carrying an epic piece of artwork that when unfurled spans almost twenty feet. When I asked AlwaysHungryNY.com’s founder, Jeff Zalaznick how we had acquired Veselka’s mural he explained:

“When I walked into Veselka and saw that the originally high price of the mural had been lowered and now included the chance to ‘make your best offer,’ I made Charnick an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

And what was that offer?

“The thing about Charnick that people don’t know is that it was never about money for him. What he wanted was that the mural would be in a place that was worthy of having it. Charnick is a huge fan of the site. I’m honored that he felt our headquarters was a fitting home. It’s good to know that AlwaysHungryNY.com is Charnick-approved.”

 

Left, the painting originally at Veselka. Right, Veselkhiarascuro, installed in AlwaysHungryNY.com’s Gramercy headquarters.

In the course of the mural’s installation Charnick cracked jokes and related several lesser-known facts about Veselkhiarascuro and himself. He has been painting murals since 1982. This one’s size was dictated by the restaurant’s shape (where it was painted), and its color was chosen based on his finding inexpensive bottles of black gouache. “These are all real people,” he explained. “The way I did this is I started with a blank canvas. I was on a ladder with a pencil and I started drawing. That’s why people are all different sizes and are in places the way they are.”

If you look closely, you’ll see that eight of the mural’s 85 figures have more than three arms. “I’d be drawing and people would move,” Charnick said. Also, it isn’t monochromatic. In the center at the top there’s a patch of color— cut up pieces of the color mural that was once on the restaurant wall.

Charnick was a short-order cook for 18 years, “Mostly at Kiev and Paris Commune,” and he said he had one food motto that he lives by, “It should be on a sign on the wall inside every restaurant: Confucius says many men swallow, but Fu Manchu.”

Before leaving, Charnick hinted that the mural contains a self-portrait, “My nose is in there somewhere. It shows up in the newspaper.” His profile is depicted in a newspaper photograph in the lower left corner, beneath the signs for pierogies and kielbasa (right, a self-portrait of the artist).