New York Post - 19.08.2019

New York Post, Monday, August 19, 2019

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16

Artist reaches new heights

DOMINGO Zapata. Spanish-

American. Born in Mallorca.

Lives in Gramercy Park. Paints

personality stuff like a panda

with the US flag. Exhibits at

Cha Cha Gallery. Designs for

Alice + Olivia. Chums with

Lindsay Lohan, George So-

ros, Leonardo DiCaprio,

Johnny Depp plus — if you

can put this together — His Ho-

liness the pope, for whom he’s

done charities and canvasses.

Understand, this is no Sistine

Chapel stuff. Also maybe the

guy on the street maybe doesn’t

know him — but then no guy on

the street gets hoisted up to

paint a 15-story vinyl retrospec-

tive of his own 20-year career

along a side of One Times

Square’s building, where the

ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

Domingo: “One day, I’m in the

harness stuck three hours on

the 17th floor. Problem was the

rig. I’m scared of heights and

tried to concentrate on the

work. I have a phone, but I

freaked out a little. There’s lots

of security. Two guys stay un-

derneath moving me up. But...

“It lost power 200 feet up, and

it’s 4 o’clock. No food, no water

because everything — brushes,

rollers, acrylic, vinyl base — is

on the rig. It was crazy. They

sent for a fireman, and I tried

not to look down.”

Not exactly like hanging on a

wall in the Met — so why do

this?

“Not for money. I’m not get-

ting paid. This project took 25

people. Four are painters. The

team works for me and we all

make good money. The building

owners wanted special adver-

tising for the community. I’d

worked for them before, done

Welcome to New York videos

and they wanted an artist to

wrap their building. My 30,000-

foot mural’s half the size of the

60,000-foot largest ever done in

history.”

Yeah, OK, great. So, specifics.

Up for hours in the clouds, how

do you pee?

“In a bucket.”

And how did a nice sky-

scraper painter meet all these

celebrities?

“Years ago I dated Lindsay.

LA has lots of buyers who are

into art. See something in a

house, and the other one wants

it.

“After this it’s a big party,

then I rest a couple of weeks

then off to Tokyo and next...

maybe... who knows...

maybe I’ll do the Great Wall of

China.”

Cindy

Adams

THE late “Easy Rider,” easy in many ways, had a dark side.

He’d show for dinner in heavily tinted sunglasses. The shades

hid that Peter Fonda had inhaled. Like bigtime. The guy loved

cannabis.

The dark side went to dark chocolate. Once his friend Jesse

Nash didn’t eat the chocolate ice cream in front of him, Peter

grabbed it and three spoonfuls later killed the whole bowl.

Peter Fonda lived all of his life.

May he have an easy ride

Domingo Zapata’s Times Square mural

REMINDER. Saturday, Sept. 28,

Central Park’s Great Lawn, Mr./

Mrs. Hugh Jackman co-host this

year’s Global Citizen Festival.

Other co-hosts: Rami Malek,

Taraji P. Henson, Matt Bomer,

Rachel Brosnahan, Forest Whi-

taker. Headliners are Queen,

Pharrell Williams, Alicia Keys,

Carole King. It’s the movement to

end extreme poverty... GRACIE

Mansion’s prepping for a three-day

Halloween event (Oct. 25, 26 and

27). It will transform into a themed

haunted house. There will be an

outdoor tent with holiday arts and

crafts, face painting, goody bags for

kids, balloon making. Plus, well in

advance, to be sure they arrive by

Oct. l1, Gristedes is shipping to a

Bronx storage warehouse 4,000 red

boxes with the white string of those

famous longtime, all-time, old-time

animal crackers.

Pay attention

MUCH China talk in the news.

To m: “Once in China a boy didn’t

take their girl out until he marries

her.” Wife Gloria: “Yeah? In the

United States, he doesn’t take her

out after he marries her.”

Only in New York, kids, only

in New York.

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