Jilly Ballistic
Artist Jilly Ballistic's installation outside Playwrights Horizons on 42 Street.
Jilly Ballistic installation "With Great Power Comes No Accountability" at 416 West 42 Street.
We kick off the Public Art Series with "With Great Power Comes No Accountability" by Jilly Ballistic, a street artist whose work is distinctly New York — specific to the city, to its subway walls, its rush hours, its advertisements, and MTA agents. Some of their spray-glued interventions only stay up for minutes, while others last for weeks. As tangible as the trash cans and billboards they adorn, but as ephemeral as live performance, their creations are a form of public theater played for an audience of passersby. With their upcoming piece on view at 42nd Street, Playwrights Horizons understands drama anew, not as the traffic of a stage but as the ebbs and flows of foot traffic on sidewalks and subway platforms.
The inaugural installation frames the crisis that’s ravaging our nation daily with shocking, undeniable lucidity. In the artist’s own words, “It's difficult to conceptualize such large numbers, especially when those numbers are linked to something so tragic as these deaths. There's a danger, though, if we don't fully grasp the atrocity: we allow those in power to get away with murder. What better way for a politician to understand our pain than using money as a metaphor?"
Our inagural Public Art Series installation outside Playwrights.
About Jilly Ballistic
Jilly Ballistic may be considered New York City's leading subway vandal. Over the last decade, she has used hundreds of stations, train cars and advertisements to shine a light on our contemporary political climate and the startling evolution of warfare over the last century. Ballistic has been featured in numerous street art documentaries ("Wild in the Streets," Dega Films), television series (Canal+, PBS) and international culture magazines — from AnimalNY, BuzzFeed, Hyperallergic, HUCK and BUST; Time Out New York has declared her work to be one of the best underground (issue 843), as did amNewYork (4/9/18). Her work and process is documented in three major book publications, "Outdoor Gallery: New York City," "2Create" (both by Yoav Litvin) and "Women Street Artists: The Complete Guide" (Xavier Tapies, Graffito Press). She is also co-host, writer and producer of the podcast “Well… That’s Interesting.”
Artist Jilly Ballistic at 61st Street in Woodside before the Manhattan-bound 7, photo from her Tumblr archive.
American Eagle Ad Intervention (Steinway Street, Queens-bound M/R), see more here.
More of Jilly's subway art, uploaded onto Flickr on June 25, 2020; see more here.
More subway art seen here.
The ink reads "Pull For Latest Statement From Mitch McConnell," signed JB.
An image of Jilly's work as seen in "Outlaw," her interiview with Nadia Szold in 1985.
An image of Jilly installing some of her work as seen in "The Lookout: Ladies Night Out with Jilly Ballistic" by Erica Stella for Sold Magazine.
