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Ravi Zupa is one of my favorite artists, and his show These Five Kings opens at my gallery Subliminal Projects on June 10th! I’ve collaborated with Ravi a few times, and he had his first solo show here in 2013. As an artist, he is a rare find, with an excellent command of a broad range of techniques and aesthetics that sets him apart. Ravi demonstrates mastery in a Renaissance painting style, collage, printmaking, and drawing. I’m excited to see his new work for this exhibition. Hope to see you there!
–Shepard
These Five Kings opens at @ Subliminal Projects Saturday, 6/10, 7-10PM. RSVP to rsvp@subliminalprojects.com to attend.
Subliminal Projects is pleased to present These Five Kings, by Denver-based artist Ravi Zupa. For his second solo exhibition at Subliminal Projects, Zupa will utilize the entirety of the gallery presenting four different bodies of work that highlight his multidisciplinary practice. The exhibition will feature a site-specific installation of his ongoing typewriter machine gun series titled Mightier Than, a new series of sculptures, as well as new print-based originals, drawings, and paintings.
The exhibition title, These Five Kings, was lifted from a line in the poem The Hand That Signed the Paper, by Dylan Thomas published in 1935. The poem examines the dangers of power and the written word, a concept that plays an integral role in the exhibition through a contemporary lens. With the arrival of A.I. language models, the autonomy of more cognitive tasks, such as writing, has now been usurped, and our competitive advantage is now contingent on our empathy and dexterity.
“Our hands are only made more precious and more invaluable by this strange turn of history. We usually think of the power of words as a positive thing, how it beats the power of violence, but this poem keenly illustrates the dangerous side of that power. How the written word can be a weapon of mass destruction. What we make with our hands and who we share it with becomes more beautiful and more profound.”
–Ravi Zupa
This poem resonates with Zupa’s Mightier Than series. With intricate craftsmanship, Zupa creates realistic-looking modern assault rifles out of vintage typewriter parts, turning the adage the “pen is mightier than the sword” on its head. Entirely self-taught, Zupa sources his material exclusively from his own hand and creative universe, utilizing a variety of artistic techniques and extensive research. Finding inspiration from German Renaissance printmakers, Flemish primitives, abstract expressionists, Japanese woodblock artists, Mughal painters, religious iconography, and revolutionary propaganda from around the world, Zupa has created his own unique symbolic legend. The immersive exhibition takes the viewer through Zupa’s singular retrofuturistic aesthetic, challenging ideas of violence and communication, cultural familiarities, and the fantastical.
ABOUT RAVI ZUPA
Ravi Zupa considers books the best way to experience art. He has spent decades studying books about the art, mythology, religion, and history of cultures from across geography and time. With a distaste for ironic art or the thoughtless appropriation of culture, he integrates seemingly unrelated images in search of something universal. Zupa does not create any of his art digitally; everything comes from his own hand.
For more information visit ravizupa.com, and follow him on Instagram @raviamarzupa.
