Beautiful/Decay is returning to the art t-shirt game by collaborating with Blood is the New Black on a new line of limited edition tees featuring our favorite artists.
Beautiful/Decay hand picked each of the artists in this t-shirt series, they are available on the B/D shop for a limited time. Once they are gone, they are gone forever! See the complete lineup after the jump.
Before his untimely death, even before he was taken under the wing of Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat was something of legend. He’s since become an enduring art icon. His street art sensibility, youthful energy, and handling of themes of racism, class, psychology, and popular culture keep his art relevant from year to year. However, Basquiat’s popularity is enjoying a special renewal over the course of 2013. The hugely popular Basquiat retrospective at Manhattan’s Gagosian Gallery will be followed by another at Gagosian’s Hong Kong gallery later this month. Additionally this month, Basquiat’s painting Dustheads is expected to fetch up to $35 million dollars in auction at Christie’s. In conjunction with the auction, Christie’s has released a three-part video series on Jean-Michel Basquiat. The first video features Basquiat’s early partner in graffiti, Al Diaz. The second in the series speaks with fellow contemporary artist Toxic on Basquiat’s transformation into an art-star. The third installment (featured after the jump speaks with Macklemore, one of many contemporary rappers to express inspiration from the late artist. [via]
Robert Therrien recontextualizes everyday images and objects by exaggerating them. His larger-than-life sculptures of tables, chairs, and dishware offer viewers an alternative perspective of these usually mundane and overlooked domestic elements. Therrien’s work simultaneously validates and absurdifies these simple objects by calling attention to their existence. In addition to enlarging items, Therrien also warps them or physically places them in a thoughtful context, commenting on the boundaries of the functionality, design, and purpose of these simple objects and images. Accompanying the inorganic images are organic ones, such as a 51 inch tall beard and a 47 inch long stork beak with bundle. Therrien has lived in Los Angeles since 1971.
The work of Alex Prager has always been dramatic…or perhaps the correct word is ‘cinematic’. It may not be surprising that in addition to being a photographer, Prager is also a film maker. His newest series of photographs, titled Compulsion, resemble movie stills the moment the film takes a turn for the worst. The images capture a distressing unresolvable anxiety. However, there is also a strangely pleasant disaster-flick aesthetic found in the images. The photographs underscore the prettiness and predictability of dramatized demise. [via]
At a time when makers have more tools at their fingertips than ever before, it’s intriguing to see an artist dedicated to perfecting the use of the most basic, universal medium: pencil on paper. The delicate, slowly unraveling works of Bay Area artist Claire Colette showcase a deep understanding and intimacy with her chosen medium. The works are an investigation of fragmentation—reminiscent of destroyed VHS film, magazine clippings or even slightly fragmented memories. The works reveal the artist’s interest in capturing, remixing and representing an instantaneous moment, despite the fact that each piece is slowly and meticulously rendered in graphite.
Bubi Canal – Chrystelle from Bubi Canal on Vimeo.
We have featured the work of Spanish artist Bubi Canal on the blog in the past (here). He currently lives and works in New York City and continues to produce larger than life photographs steeped in surrealistic whimsy. He has recently updated his website with new images, video, and plastic sculpture that exude childlike wonder. In his own words Canal aims to highlight “…wishes, dreams, magic and love” and we are excited to watch his imaginative world expand.
Icelandic artist Shoplifter aka Hrafnhildur Arnardottir lives and works in New York. “Her body of work as a whole exists in the gray area between visual art, performance, and design. Shoplifter has worked for several years exploring the use and symbolic nature of hair, and its visual and artistic potential. For Shoplifter hair is the ultimate thread that grows from our body. Hair is an original, creative fiber, a way for people to distinguish themselves as individuals, and often an art form. Humor plays a large roll in her life and work, sometimes subtly, but other times taking over. This humor extends to her love of playing with the juxtaposition of opposites. Like with her hair pieces- they appear beautiful evoking natural forms and plant life, but at the same time hair is considered grotesque and disturbing when it is not attached to the body, like hair in the shower drain. She uses traditional handcraft techniques like knitting, weaving, and braiding to create new forms of textiles, while referring to established methods in art. She is attracted to the playfulness found in folk art, naïvism, and handicraft which all have a strong influence on her organic process of creating work.”
Whether or not Yochai Matos is creating an installation to view inside or outside a studio space, he pays careful attention to the way light creates an atmosphere. For his indoor installations, existing studio light can make his work appear more ethereal, something to which “You Are a Saint” affirms. His work sometimes directly addresses the absence/presence of light, as in his outdoor installations “Landscape” and “Flame (Gate).” Because the perception of his work changes with the amount of light available for any installation, the experience of his work is as fluid as the experience of natural or artificial light in any given environment.
