has been for sale for some time, as you have seen. The maintenance and ongoing development to keep our non-profit and idealistic platform for contemporary art running and safe from hackers etc. costs money that is no longer there. Because of small investments that are necessary now and the running costs, we will have to shut down with a heavy heart at the beginning of summer on June 21.
While showing my graffiti style work I would often hear the comment, "but graffiti is vandalism." A vandal intends to destroy the purpose of an object. This is an example of vandalism. Originally this was a cheap Chinese import that i bought in a local discount store. As some cultures in the past have destroyed earlier religious images by whitewashing them, i painted over this still life with white paint thus destroying the stil life and adding new meanings.
I did not seek unconditional destruction in my vandalism. The scratches, whitewashing and writing with markers was a softer type of destruction than burning it or blasting it. So, I call it "Minimal Vandalism." As a style of painting it bears little resemblance to graffiti.
An inexpensive Chinese import was on sale in a local discount store in the Bronx. I bought it before I vandalized it. It was already a rip-off of the Italian Renaissance painting of the "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci. The Chinese manufacrurer/artst gave Jesus a Hollywood style handsomeness which must have pleased us for they must have sold hundreds of them in New York alone. By whitewashing and scratching the image I vandalized, destroyed, the image of global conceptual value, an image made in Italy, China and the United States. This is not a graffiti, it is global conceptual vandalism.
16 1/2" H x 20 1/2"W This painting has been written on, scratched and painted over; in other words it has been thoroughly vandalized. However, as it now stands it is a new art work. It's subject is no longer the "Last Supper" but "Conceptual Vandalism." It is produced though vandalism therefore it's style is 'Vandalism." Compare it to 'Graffiti" the style.
16 1/2 H x 20 1/2 "W This painting was made as a companion to 'Conceptual Vandalism." On a superficial level they both involve important dinners. But, they both have to do with how we see things and change brought about by a few influential people. It is in a Vandalism style. It too was originally a Chinese import sold in a Bronx discount store. It too was whitewashed and written upon. Annie Liebowitz photos were cut out of an issue of 'Vanity Fair" magazine (December 2007) and some guests at a museum donor's dinner party could appear here.
28 1/2" H X 18 3/4"W: Pop art as a style is compatible with graffiti as a style. Their works are instantly recognizable, have a bold, brash quality and don't require nuances. Both use unconventional subjects.
