BAM | Omari Douglin

As part of BAM’s Robert W. Wilson Public Art Initiative, visual artists are commissioned to create murals inspired by the Hamm Archives, a vast collection chronicling the institution’s history, programming, and people. The newest of these commissioned works, Omari Douglin’s Junction, is on view from May 2026 to April 2027 at 29 Lafayette Avenue, directly across the street from BAM’s Peter Jay Sharp Building.

Junction unfolds as a collage of archival images from BAM’s Next Wave Journals, magazines, posters, and advertisements, primarily from the 1980s and 1990s, reimagined through his distinct painting style. At its center, legendary jazz musician Miles Davis sits in a contemplative pose, drawn from a 1994 GAP advertisement in BAM’s Next Wave Festival Journal. In the upper right, the model Kim Baker wears a Gucci bag, referencing Next Wave advertising material. These appropriated fragments extend Douglin’s ongoing inquiry into the porous relationship between artists and brands, where cultural figures circulate across commercial and art historical contexts.

The mural’s yellow background echoes Keith Haring’s 1984 poster for Secret Pastures—a landmark performance by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. In layering these references, the mural reflects the cyclical nature of creative exchange, where one artistic discipline informs another, and where curiosity becomes a generative force.

Public Art Curator: Alessandra Gómez
Art Consultant: Jesse Hamerman
Mural hand painted by Colossal Media