A painting by Spagnoli representing neuropathic pain.Stephen Spagnoli’s studio space is located in a former meat freezer.“I opened the door and it was unbelievable. “I always had the artistic ability, but I never had the space,” Spagnoli says. When someone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he replied, “An artist.” He was referred to Creedmoor and he’s been coming to the museum a few times a week for the past fifteen years. Stephen Spagnoli, who has battled depression and chronic pain, found out about the Living Museum at a job fair. An old dentist chair sits surrounded by art.There is art at the museum in every style and medium.An altar filled with religious-themed art occupies an entire room.A wall of painted TVs sits in a dark room on the second floor.The peeling paint, rusty metal catwalks, and defunct kitchen equipment scattered around the museum creates a sharp contrast with the colorful and often poignant art layered on top. As the population of Creedmoor declined, its older buildings were either repurposed or abandoned. The museum is housed in Creedmoor’s former cafeteria. Greczynski, an artist himself, died in 1995, but Marton still runs the museum, which is part working art studio and part gallery. A trend toward deinstitutionalizing patients began in the 1960s, and today the psychiatric center only has a few hundred beds. Patients worked in the kitchens, helped with laundry, grew their own food, and raised livestock. The 300-acre campus comprises more than 50 buildings and once had gardens, a swimming pool, a theater, and a television studio. By 1959, that number had ballooned to 7,000. | Photo: Alexandra CharitanĬreedmoor, founded in 1912, opened with just 32 patients. The Living Museum is located in Creedmoor’s former cafeteria.Janos Marton, left and Bolek Greczynski, right.
Marton was working at Creedmoor as a psychologist when he and Greczynski started the Living Museum as “an oasis where it is alright that you have symptoms of disturbances, it’s alright to be mad or be crazy or whatever society calls the kind of behavior you are exhibiting,” as Marton says in a documentary filmed at the museum. The Living Museum was founded in 1983 by Bolek Greczynski and Dr. Less than 20 miles east of the more famous venues, tucked away on the sprawling campus of Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, is a treasure trove of art just as good as-if not better than-what you’ll find on the walls of MOMA or the Whitney. Some of the best art in New York City isn’t on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for sale at Sotheby’s, or hanging in a Chelsea gallery.
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