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New York artist turns tiny hip-hop street scenes into profitable business
But what began as a hobby has since brought him fame in the rap community and profitable sales even at Sotheby's prestigious auction house.
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Danny Cortes, a street miniature artist, shows his miniature of an ice box in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on December 19, 2022. With his nimble fingers and child-like enthusiasm, Danny Cortes re-creates in miniature the hip-hop-infused street scenes of a gritty New York. But what began as a hobby has since brought him fame in the rap community and profitable sales even at Sotheby's prestigious auction house.
(AFP/Yuki Iwamura)
W
ith his nimble fingers and child-like enthusiasm, Danny Cortes re-creates in miniature the hip-hop-infused street scenes of a gritty New York. But what began as a hobby has since brought him fame in the rap community and profitable sales even at Sotheby's prestigious auction house.
"We are adults, but we never stopped being kids," the 42-year-old artist tells AFP. "Who doesn't like toys? Who doesn't like miniatures?"
As he spoke from his workshop in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, he sat among recycled objects found on the streets.
On his table was a current project, the tiny replica of a worn and dirty building facade. Near a bricked-in window, a plastic bushel basket had been hung: a poor man's basketball hoop.
"This represents my childhood," Cortes said, putting touches to the model in his preferred medium, polystyrene.
"Everything looked like this: abandoned, empty, a lot of drugs in the area."
From $30 to $10,000
