Renowned artist Matthew Day Jackson is moving to Greenpoint — and taking over the former lair of the notorious nightclub Studio B.
Jackson, who has shown his striking sculptures and paintings in galleries all over the world including London’s esteemed Saatchi Gallery, quietly bought the two-story Banker Street building for a cool $2 million earlier this month.
He plans to convert the industrial space into a private live/work studio, the broker on the sale told Curbed on Wednesday.
The purchase no doubt puts at ease the minds of anxious neighbors, who have endured tabloid-worthy escapades of late-night revelers, including the deadly sins of urination, defecation and fornication during the wee hours.
The joint finally closed for good in June, 2009.
Other neighbors even recalled a “Girls Gone Wild”-style party in 2008 that led to photos of bare-breasted co-eds being shown at a memorable community board meeting.
But times appear to be changing on Banker Street.
The only nudity emanating from the former Studio B building these days will be in Jackson’s artwork — although he mostly works in wood, Formica, glass, concrete, and mother of pearl.
Jackson, whose just wrapped up solo shows at Peter Blum Soho and Peter Blum Chelsea galleries last month and is planning three new solo shows in Europe next year, figures to be a much quieter neighbor than the building’s former tenants.
“[I’m] interested in ‘me,’ ” he told Art in America in November. “I think to kill myself, or to make myself dead in my artwork is to leave the artist part behind, the artist as human. Because when I make art, I’m not even in the room.”
It sounds like Greenpoint residents will barely know he’s there.
