The New Greenway Mural Is Complete

Photo by Olga Khvan

The new Dewey Square mural, a freshly painted work by Lawrence Weiner titled “A Translation from One Language to Another,” brings a change of pace from the previous three editions that have graced the Greenway Wall.

The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy’s first-time collaboration with the MIT List Visual Arts Center has produced a work that’s more visually straightforward, but perhaps more contemplative in its message. While previous murals incorporated images by artists Shinique Smith, Matthew Ritchie, and Os Gemeos—through partnerships with the Museum of Fine Arts and Institute of Contemporary Art—Weiner’s work is the first mural to use text, which is left open to interpretation.

The mural, however, does not stray far from Weiner’s overall body of work, which spans more than 50 years. The conceptual artist is well known for his typographic works, including an outdoor installation at MIT.

Here, we offer a closer look at the work, by the numbers.

2
Number of coats of white primer applied to the wall before installation.

70 by 76
Dimensions of the mural, in feet.

22
Approximate number of gallons of sign paints used, hand-mixed to match the original artwork.

4
Number of collaborating entities on the mural team, including the artist himself, Overall Murals of New York City (who specialize in hand-painting large-scale murals), Arch Painting of Woburn (who prepared and primed the wall), and MARR Scaffolding Company of Boston (who provided the boom lifts for installation).

60 and 80
Height of the boom lifts, in feet, that were used by the mural painters.

7
Number of days it took to complete the mural.

 Bonus, non-numerical, fun fact
The font used is Margaret Seaworthy Gothic, which was originally designed by the artist.