Occupy Wall Street Art: www.occupywallstreet.org
What the Occupy Wall Street movement lacks in organizational clarity in its direction and goals, it makes up for with enthusiastic free-form grassroots activism that has gathered contagious pacifist support by way of visual virals – posters, signs and graffiti – awaking solidarity across the globe.
The Brooklyn Griffin, © Robots, GiantRobots.co.uk
Robots an art collective in London creates public interactive sculptures, giant robots, from recycled furniture, old wood and rejects from leftover trash that prove for them, that ‘one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.’ The two artists, former movie-set builders, Jimmy Bumble and Leonard White, also constructed the Brooklyn Griffin on a trip to New York last year.
Slinkachu's Relics, 2009. Photograph: Slinkachu ©Slinkachu
VICTOR SKREBNESKI (B. 1929) portrait of Dennis Hopper, 1990 gelatin silver diptych signed and dated in ink (on the recto) overall 19¼ x 29¼ in. (48.9 x 74.3 cm.) Sold: $9,375
Dennis Hopper (R.I.P.) began his art collection in the 1960s after actor Vincent Price, who was an impressionist art collector himself, had encouraged him, telling him it was where he needed to put his money. Dennis Hopper’s four children auctioned off their dad’s collection of 300 works of art at Christie’s today. Alex Hitz, a close friend and trustee of the estate told Associated Press, “it was Dennis’s wish to sell everything. How do you cut a Warhol and all those other wonderful pieces by four?”
One of the more notable pieces in this collection was Warhol’s Mao, a framed screenprint of Mao Zedong with two bullet holes, resulting from a wild night of partying when Hopper mistook the portrait on his wall for Mao himself and shot at it. When Hopper showed the bullet punctures later to Warhol, the pair agreed to call it a work of collaboration, with Warhol drawing circles around the two holes and labeling them “warning shot” and “bullet hole.” The mystique obviously added to its value as the screen print, which was estimated at $20-$30K, fetched quite a bit more: $302,500
ANNIE LEIBOVITZ (B. 1947) Portrait of Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken at Chateau Marmont, 1995, Estimated at $3-5K sold for $12.5K
By JRS
Mr. Brainwash, aka Thierry Guetta, holding court over his maze on West 13th Street
“If you do something you love, you become an icon, because you do it so well that in one moment, everybody appreciates it,” says Thierry Guetta, leaning back in a paint-splattered Eames lounge chair in the middle of his newest exhibition, Icons. The street artist-turned gallery sensation went on to talk about his time spent decorating the walls and sidewalks of New York: “The street is just a large gallery to me. Even the people that don’t like it are obligated to see it. There are no rules on the street, there is just freedom. Thousands of people can see it.”
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