RIP

Rest in Peace

RIP is a series of 4 matresses and 4 pillows from the '100 Murders and a Suicide' project. They were on display at the Art in Redlight art fair, and provided the visitors of the art fair a resting place. They also symbolize a postumous soft landing for the victims of the homicides.

The pictures were taken on the spot where the murders took place, sometimes the actual house numbers were shot (they were printed on the pillows), but often only the sidewalk with no more than the shadows of some passers-by were photographed. Millions of people pass those sidewalks, without being aware what happened. Does the pavement reveal its past? Thus wandering through the streets of NYC, exploring life and death in this bustling city and questioning the glamour of the Amercian Dream.

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Powers vs. Smith

05/31/08 - 15 Broad St.
Victim: Margaux Powers, white female 26
Perpertrator: Jonathan Smith, white male 34
Motive: not reported

While police swarmed the Chelsea building, Smith was downtown, where he jumped from an apartment house at 15 Broad St., landing on Exchange Place in two pieces, cops said. Reports say that Powers had “canceled plans to attend a family gathering Thursday” so she could break up with Jonathan Smith. Powers and Smith, a chef who had been recently laid off, lived together in the Chelsea apartment on 235 W 22nd St. Police believe Smith slit her throat with a kitchen knife, which was later cleaned and heated in an oven, perhaps in an attempt to destroy evidence.

Yo, Steve - I stabbed you

03/07/09 10: 42 PM - Clinton St. at Cherry St.
Victim: Steven Boysen, black male 21
Perpetrator: Jonathan Maldonado, black male 20
Motive: argument
Weapon: knife

Baby-shower Slay. Police charged Jonathan Maldonado with stabbing a New Jersey man to death after an argument at a baby shower in the LaGuardia Houses. Maldonado and the victim, Steven Boysen, of Willingboro, N.J., carried their argument outside. A witness told police that he saw Maldonado with a knife and heard him say, “Yo, Steve-I stabbed you.” Boysen was found lying on the ground with a stab wound in the middle of his chest. He was declared dead of the knife thrust, which had penetrated his heart, shortly after he arrived at the hospital.

Cancel Kevin

08/31/08 6:15 PM - West 19th St. at 6th Ave
Victim: Kevin Pravia, white male 19
Perpertrator: Jerome Cancel, hispanic male 22
Motive: not reported
Weapon: electrical cord

Kevin Pravia, from Massachusetts, and the then-homeless Cancel crossed paths in downtown Manhattan around 5 a.m. on August 30, 2008. Cancel told police that Pravia asked to buy cocaine from him and then invited him to share it. But an autopsy found no trace of any drugs. The young men drank together, Pravia fell asleep and Cancel gathered the sleeping student’s electronics so he could steal them. Then, he said, he decided to kill Pravia because he was bored. He choked Pravia with an electric cord while smoking a cigarette and watching the horror hit ‘Saw’.

Thank You

No reports or details were found on this homicide.

Murder spots printed on matresses, 200 x 70 x 15 cm (79 x 28 x 6”) 2014,
from the series 100 Murders and 1 Suicide (New York, 2013).