WOW – Work Of the Week – Shepard Fairey “Power Bidder”

Power Bidder

SHEPARD FAIREY
Power Bidder
2015
Screenprint
24 x 18 in.
Edition of 450

Pencil signed and numbered

About This Work:

Tomorrow, finally, will be Election Day.
Both candidates carry a lot of baggage with them.

Both candidates have very high unfavorable poll numbers.

Both candidate are flawed.

Questions about politicians and just how ethical they are, and how ethical the whole system is, have been raised. Charges of unlawful and unjust “dealings” have been tossed around for the whole world to see just how much of a mockery this election is. 

Due to tomorrow’s elections, we feel that this particular artwork is very fitting and we found its message very appropriate for this occasion.

This weeks work of the week is called Power Bidder, by Shepard Fairey

At the bottom of the work it reads “Democracy sold to the highest bidder”.

With all the craziness, and nonsense that has surrounded this election cycle, it seem that truer have never been spoken!

Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary graphic designer and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his “Andre the Giant Has a Posse”
(…OBEY…) sticker campaign.

Fairey created the “André the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign in 1989, while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). This later evolved into the “Obey Giant” campaign.  As with most street artists, the Obey Giant was intended to inspire curiosity and cause the masses to question their relationship with their surroundings.

His work became more widely known in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, specifically his Barack Obama “Hope” poster. The New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl called the poster “the most efficacious American political illustration since ‘Uncle Sam Wants You'”.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston calls him one of today’s best known and most influential street artists.

His work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In 2011 Time Magazine commissioned Fairey to design its cover to honor “The Protester” as Person of the Year in the wake of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and other social movements around the world.  This was Fairey’s second Person of the Year cover for Time, his first being of Barack Obama in 2008.

WOW – Work Of the Week – KAWS “Chum Running Pink”

Chum Running Pink

KAWS
Chum Running Pink
2003
Screenprint
14 x 21 in.
Edition of 36

Pencil signed, dated and numbered on verso

About This Work:

Brian Donnelly, born in 1974, is a New York – based artist, professionally known as KAWS.
After graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York, his first job was as a freelance animator, painting backgrounds for Disney. In the 1990s, KAWS began his artistic career as a graffiti artist, subverting imagery on billboards, bus shelters and phone booth advertisements. At first, these reworked ads lasted for several months, but as KAWS’ popularity skyrocketed, the ads became increasingly sought after.

In 1999 KAWS began to design and produce his first limited-edition vinyl toys with Japanese clothing brands and companies. That seemed to be the right country for the beginning of his career, because in Japan, the toys genre is well respected and widespread.
This particular artistic production by KAWS began in the wake of contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, today a great friend of his. KAWS says that his predilection in creating toys and little objects derives from the work of two artists in particular: Superflat master Takashi Murakami and Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, both famous for their fine art and playful objects made in large editions.
With time, the toys which he first started with, have gained popularity and have become more and more recognizable, leading him to several collaborations in different commercial fields.

KAWS’ work is characterized by repeating images, all meant to be universally understood, surpassing languages and cultures. He is greatly influenced by iconic characters from modern pop culture. KAWS uses four main characters: Companion, Accomplice, Chum and Bendy. They riff on Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, the Michelin Man and a giant spermatozoa. Their relationship to Donnelly hovers somewhere between avatar, id, conscience and inner child.
This work of the week is Chum Running Pink.

KAWS’ work treads the fine line between art, commerce, cartoons, and commercials. It distorts, yet at the same time, pays homage to, all the popular objects and icons produced, bought, sold, exchanged, desired, and cherished; the essence of American consumerism. His artworks transform iconic pop culture characters into thought-provoking works of art. His work possesses a sophisticated humor while employing a refined graphic language that revitalizes figuration with bold gestures, playful and cartoonish images.
This artistic process recalls what Andy Warhol and other pop artists used to do by projecting their art toward the concept of consumerism and of American lifestyle.

A graffiti artist, illustrator, toy-maker, sculptor and painter, KAWS is now a world-renowned artist, who exhibits in museums and galleries internationally.

WOW – Work Of the Week – Julian Opie “Walking In The Rain, Seoul”

Walking in the Rain Seoul

JULIAN OPIE
Walking In The Rain, Seoul
2015
Screenprint on Somerset Satin tub sized 410 gsm paper 
59 x 86 3/8 in.
Edition of 50

Signed and numbered on label on verso

About This Work:

Julian Opie was born in London, where he currently lives and works.
He emerged in the 1980s as part of the so-called New British Sculpture movement.
This was an art movement characterized by some features that are recognizable in Opie’s work, such us a mix of pop and kitsch aesthetics, urban environments and society as preferred subject, or a certain play of color and humor.
He is now a well-established artist, exhibited all over the world.
His walking silhouettes are definitely among his most famous and recognizable subjects.

Movement has always been central to Opie’s full body of work, whether it is movement around and through the artworks or the movement of the artworks themselves.
A walking figure suggests life, power and purpose. The person is not posed for, or even aware of the viewer. In profile the striding human body is dynamic, and such a view is available on any street corner in the city.

In 2015 Julian Opie was invited to participate in a show in South Korea, when he created Walking In The Rain, Seoul.
With the studio doors open, he first took photos of passers-by as soon as it started raining, then he gathered the images together to capture this moment.
This is a very interesting statement by the artist himself, that explains clearly what was going on in Opie’s mind when he was creating this work in Seoul:

With the umbrellas included, the images became large and complicated with a layering of different movement from top to bottom. This was probably the most complicated picture I had managed to compose so far. The rainy season was over and when the rain came it was light and the weather was warm. The resulting image is very personal and unique in feel, mood and color. I usually make paintings in two or more sizes […] but I could not imagine such a complex image being small so instead of a smaller size I decided to make an editioned silkscreen print on paper“. 

The humongous size and the strong color palette create a Pop allure, while the bold black contour lines make each element of the composition stand out.

Depicting human figures has always been a challenge for artists. However, Opie managed to find a new, original, personal way to represent people. His extremely recognizable style have gained him a place among the most famous contemporary artists of our time.

WOW – Work Of the Week – Marilyn Minter “Prism”

Prism 2

MARILYN MINTER
Prism
2009
Chromogenic print
20 x 16 in.
Artist’s Proof (A.P.) of 18

Signed, titled, dated and numbered on verso

About This Work:

Marilyn Minter (born in 1948) is an American contemporary photographer/artist.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and raised in Florida, she moved to New York City in 1976, where she currently works and lives, after earning a master of fine arts degree at Syracuse University. 

Marilyn Minter has been a part of the New York art scene since the late 1970s. Her artistic career started with a series of now celebrated photographic studies of her drug-addicted mother while she was still a student in Florida.
At the end of the 1980s, she painted herself straight into fevered and often bitter controversy when she began using imagery taken from porn magazines and Pop-derived images that often had hidden sexual references. 
Her infamy was even more exacerbated in 1990 when she was the first artist to self-produce her own TV advertisement, titled 100 Food Porn, which ran during late-night mainstream television shows.

Starting from the 1990s, she started to gradually refine her style and imagery so that, while still suggesting some kind of sexual undercurrent, her photographs and paintings seem equally to breathe the atmosphere of high fashion and contemporary glamour.

For over three decades, Marilyn Minter has produced lush paintings, photographs, and videos that vividly manifest our culture’s complex and contradictory emotions around the feminine body and around the concept of beauty, by bringing into sharp, critical focus the power of desire.
Her photographs and works often include sexuality and erotic imagery. Minter does it by using conventional darkroom processes. She never crops or digitally manipulates her photographs, a feature that is becoming more and more rare.

Prism is a refined version of Minter’s early works, which despite still having pornographic undertones, exudes a sense of glamour and high-fashion.
This work focuses on a hyperrealistic close-up of seemingly glamorous red lips.
By using this imagery and aesthetic, we are confronted by our own preconceived notions of what exactly constitutes beauty. Minter wants to convey the concept of beauty through non-beautiful and confusing elements, through a dichotomy of imagery and sense.

Through this work, one can see how Marilyn Minter both celebrates and criticizes glamour. By depicting these sexy red lips, with shiny jewels and sparkling glitters, that reflect light, she is portraying the complexities of glamour. This work not only depicts glamour, but also what glamour “feels like”.

Marilyn Minter has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions and group exhibitions all over the worlds. In April 2015 Marilyn Minter opened her first major retrospective in the Museum of Contemporary Art Houston. This exhibition contains works that Minter had developed from 1976 to 2013. Perfectly suited, the exhibit was titled Pretty/Dirty.

Ahol Sniffs Glue New Print Release “REDRUM”

 

GREGG SHIENBAUM FINE ART

is proud to present its second editioned work with Miami Artist

AHOL SNIFFS GLUE

REDRUM

Limited to only 50 pieces.

This new work titled “REDRUM” is in the style of Abstract Expressionism. Highly influenced by this movement, Ahol breaks away from his well known style of  the “classic pattern”. In this screenprint the viewer can see the brush strokes of raw emotion poured into the work.

This print is a very meaningful work to the artist.  It is his first screenprint on paper published with Gregg Shienbaum Fine Art, and it is a work that depicts his feelings about the state of our nation and the world.

Ahol’s Eyeballs represent the eyes of the working class.  Usually seen in his typical pattern, Ahol paints these eyes to let the everyday working class person know that he is with them.  Painted on walls, cars, canvas, and anywhere he can, Ahol throws up a shout out to the regular guy, just going through the daily grind, of just making it to survive.

REDRUM (Murder spelled backwards), depicts the sad state of the killings in our communities, here at home, and around the world.

Innocent victims being shot down for just trying to get by, and live their lives.  Whether it is everyday working people in our streets and communities, law enforcement, people at a night club, or a someone overseas. This new screenprint by Ahol depicts the chaos, the turbulence, the anger, and the sadness of what is going on in our neighborhoods.

Painted in fluorescent red ink, to symbolize the blood spilled, and running through our streets, this expressionistic style allows for more artistic freedom that the Ahol has been wanting to achieve. This style  not only portrays the tension, and whirlwind of emotions that effect the people and the community, but also gives us a sense of the artist’s pure inner feelings.  This new style has more of a free flowing quality, that shows the artist’s emotion, growth, depth, and dimension.

GREGG SHIENBAUM FINE ART IS PLEASED TO BE PART OF THIS
NEW WORK, AND CREATIVE PROCESS!!

The details of this new edition are below.

  • Ahol Sniffs Glue
  • REDRUM
  • 2016
  • Fluorescent red ink screenprint on French Construction Blacktop 80# Coverweight card stock
  • 25 x 19 in.
  • Edition of 50
  • Signed and numbered
  • $300 

 

Ahol Sniffs Glue signing the REDRUM screenprints.

Ahol Sniffs Glue in front of his work REDRUM

third second

Click HERE to see the video of Ahol signing the screenprints.

 

Biscayne Boyz New Music Video

 *BISCAYNE BLOCK BOYZ*
NEW MUSIC VIDEO
by AHOL SNIFFS GLUE and OTTO VON SCHIRACH
Ahol Sniffs Glue has just released a new music video with Otto Von Schirach.

 

The video has been featured in the Miami New Times… Link to the full article HERE

 

WOW – Work Of the Week – Coinslot “Jobs Vs The FBI”

Jobs vs the FBI

COINSLOT
Jobs Vs The FBI
2016
Water based ink on paper
22 x 30 in.
Signed in ink

About This Work:

Alexander Perez, known as Coinslot, is a Miami based artist/satirist.
Drawing upon random thoughts, strange things that he has witnessed, and his biggest source, the media, he meticulously draws and paints scenes that can be taken right out of the “Twilight Zone”.
A student of New World School of the Arts in Miami, Coinslot has definitely mastered the technical aspect and capabilities to become a world class artist, but it is the way he creates his images and art work in his mind that sets him apart from the rest.

Coinslot not only has the remarkable ability to view a situation and create a ‘sick and twisted’ version of it in his mind, but also has the incredible talent to take what he sees in his mind and put the pen to paper creating this ‘sick and twisted’ masterpiece in the most fullest and complex detail you’ve ever seen” – Gregg Shienbaum.

To view his works properly, one must stand in front of his art for at least 20-30 minutes to see all the minute and incredible details of wit, humor and absurdity that is poured onto the canvas directly from his mind.
Jobs Vs The FBI is the perfect example of this. In this work Coinslot takes a news related relevant issue, in this case Apple versus the United States, in which a federal court judge has ordered Apple to assist the FBI with unlocking an iPhone used by one of the attackers responsible for the massacre in San Bernardino, California. Apple, for its part, is still fighting the court order, arguing that the FBI is asking for something that will lead to the invasion of the privacy of millions of people.

Here Jobs’ grave, as in real life, is unmarked. Coinslot cleverly places the old Apple logo on the grave marker, which is surrounded by FBI men asking for his permission to give Apple the go ahead to write the code that will eventually unlock all of the world deepest darkest secrets.

It is just like Adam taking a bit of the Apple unleashing an uproar upon the world. The FBI men take Jobs silence as him giving them permission. This is Coinslot’s way of telling us that the government is going to do it any way with or without him.

Aside from making the viewer think or in some cases making the viewer uncomfortable, Coinslot’s attention to detail is the other important aspect of his work. Everything is in the details. His attention to details can be seen in all the leaves in the trees and the blades of grass, but it is the details that you don’t notice at first that make this piece. The inclusion of a tiny man in the background visiting someone’s grave and the other names and sayings on the grave markers. He even places his name on a grave marker with fallen leaves on it. All these painstaking meticulous details, add to the WOW of the piece and it is these details that raise the most smiles and eyebrows.

WOW – Work Of the Week – Basquiat “Hollywood Africans In Front Of The Chinese Theater With Footprints Of Movie Stars”

Hollywood Africans

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

Hollywood Africans In Front Of The Chinese Theater With Footprints Of Movie Stars
1983/2015
23 color screenprint
38 1/2 x 84 in.
Artist’s Proof (A.P.) of 15
Certified authentic, signed, dated and numbered on verso by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux  of the Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate

 

About This Work:

In less than a decade the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat went from being a teenage graffiti writer to an international art star; he was dead of a drug overdose at age twenty-seven. A legend in his own lifetime. 

Basquiat’s meteoric success and overnight burnout were an instant art-world myth; his brief career spanned the giddy ’80s art boom and epitomized its outrageous excess, from its art dealers to its drug dealers, from its clubs to its galleries, from Madonna to Warhol.

Basquiat was very fearful of the unfavorable racial reality in America, and saw himself as in no small amount of danger. These feelings often presented themselves in Basquiat’s work, which was typically socially and politically charged. His paintings were highly symbolic in nature and often focused on what he saw as intrinsic dichotomies, such as the wealthy versus the impoverished or integration versus segregation. 

The subject of this impressive artwork is related to the widely known 1983 artwork Hollywood Africans, currently owned by the Whitney Museum of American Art. It depicts Basquiat with friends, the artists Toxic and Rammellzee. Toxic is the figure on the left, Rammellzee is the central face (as it can be seen by the green letters RMLZ on top of the head) and Basquiat is the right figure, as it can also be deduced from the typical shape of Basquiat’s hair.

Hollywood Africans represents a commentary on the stereotyping and marginalizing of African Americans in the entertainment industry. This theme led these three artists to coin the term and refer to themselves as the “Hollywood Africans”. Furthermore, this is a very current theme, it has even been the controversy of last night’s Oscars ceremonies, where several black actors and actresses have emphasized the necessity of equal rights and wages in the movie industry.

In this work, Basquiat challenges the art world by merging academic and “primitive” through his neo-expressionist style, which is recognizable by some stylistic choices: for example, when he chooses to represent his teeth not by drawing them but by writing the word TEETH, which is graphically very similar to what can be a a set of teeth. We can also notice his typical calligraphy, tough gesture and shrill colors.

This is a very important work. It is a very large, moving, biographical, historical account based on the artist’s life and the recurrent issues that surrounded him during his time, and which continue to linger on in today’s time.

Hollywood Africans original canvas

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hollywood Africans, 1983, acrylic and oil stick on canvas, 84 1/16 x 84 in.

Miami Heat player 2

NBA all star of the Miami Heat and renown art collector Amare Stoudemire with Basquiat’s Hollywood Africans In Front Of The Chinese Theater With Footprints Of Movie Stars in his new Miami home.