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I’m really excited about this show because the golden era of hip-hop, ’86-’94, was incredibly influential for me. All the work in the show is very stylish and witty. I particularly love Mark Drew’s cassette paintings and this one in particular because ICE-T’s Power album was what inspired the use of the word “Posse” in my Andre the Giant Has a Posse sticker. The lyrics to the song Power go “I’m livin’ large as possible posse unstoppable… style topical, vividly optical”. The year was ’88 and other great hip-hop records that used the word “posse” were out… N.W.A., Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, but ICE-T was my specific inspiration. -Shepard
Mark Drew, Hip Hop Mix, 2015
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, I GUESS
In Collaboration With Andres Guerrero
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 18 · 8 – 11 pm
rsvp@subliminalprojects.com
Location: SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS
1331 W. Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Click here to visit Subliminal Projects for more images and info!
SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS is pleased to present IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, I GUESS, a group exhibition featuring new work by Greg Bojorquez, Tim Diet, Mark Drew, Michelle Guintu, Jeramee Haynie, Patrick Martinez, and Kevin Woodruff. The title of the show is a direct reference to a lyric from The Recipe by Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre. Yet the show also touches on indirect references, such as the intangible essence of summer in Southern California, the individual experiences each exhibiting artist has had with music, and the disparate communities music can bring together.
The work in IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, I GUESS ranges in form and style but all retain the general playfulness that permeates throughout Los Angeles. Bojorquez highlights a sunnier side of the music industry with photography showcasing the smiles and swagger of some of hip-hop’s biggest names. Diet’s paintings are a mash-up of pop references, cartoon characters, and thug life. Drew paints musical genres in the form of stacked cassettes with an old school rhetoric that echoes current cool. Guintu paints, draws, and imagines a neon-toned life sprinkled with her favorite stars and musicians. Martinez visually recreates Los Angeles life as he sees it, breathes it, endures it, thinks it, observes it, and loves it…ultimately paying homage to it in the form of neon word plays, paintings of flowery gun stashes, cast still life’s of fruit, soda pop, and Cheetos, and birthday cakes dedicated to rap royalty. Woodruff is a performance artist with literal and figurative interest in the ways music can move a person, while Haynie’s sound installation brings the viewer back to the exhibition’s origin: music and it’s oh-so-colorful culture.
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, I GUESS is presented in collaboration with Andres Guerrero, owner of Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, Calif. Guerrero, a talented artist in his own right, has a history with Subliminal Projects and Shepard Fairey. He showed with Subliminal in 2010 and has since exhibited work by Fairey in his SF gallery. This is the first exhibition he has organized at Subliminal Projects but he continues to curate exhibitions and special projects in San Francisco and Oakland.
The opening reception at SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS will take place on Saturday, July 18 from 8 to 11 pm and will feature a special performance by Kevin Woodruff and Jeramee Haynie. A number of the artists will be in attendance at the opening and an RSVP is required to rsvp@subliminalprojects.com. The show will be on view through August 15th.
