Check out Tom Sanford’s latest paintings: From this year’s mass of overzealous media fancy and Twitter feeds, it’s Charlie Sheen on a luxurious binge and Osama Bin Laden teeming with aquatic life. ANIMAL asked the artist if the work is his own reaction to the diarrhea of the 24-hour, scandal and celeb-obessed news cycle or he’s playing zeitgeist to the nation’s consciousness. Specifically, if he’s fantasizing about Bin Laden rotting under the sea or if he’s just fascinated with the nation-wide jingoism behind the kill… Read more »
Tom Sanford Is Seeing Stars
Artist Tom Sanford demonstrates the high art of tabloid gossip for his latest series of relatively small paintings depicting the media-frenzied likes of Tiger Woods, Susan Boyle, and the White House crashing Salahis. The work will featured as part of group show at Claire Oliver Fine Art opening this week.
The Antidote, Jan 28th – Mar 6th, 2010 Claire Oliver Fine Art, 513 West 26th Street, NYC
Taking advantage of vacant storefronts and buildings, No Longer Empty organizes art events to breathe life into fallow spaces. The non-profit group opens an art exhibition this weekend at the former Brooklyn belt factory that birthed the “Invisible Dog” gag for which the show is named. One of many featured artists reflecting on the history and setting of the space, Tom Sanford painted this mural, titled “L&L Taxi (Motherless Brooklyn),” in reference to the taxi and detective agency of Jonathan Lethem’s novel, fictionally located on the same block. “Invisible Dog” opens on October 3rd from 6 to 9 PM at 51 Bergen St. in Cobble Hill.
Photo via Tom Sanford
Tom Sanford continues to maintain his art world hustle. Fresh off the success of his “Mr. Hangover” exhibit, the artist displayed a collection of black ink on paper drawings featuring “Twelve Disgraced Athletes” as part of “The Main Event” group show at Schroeder Romero gallery. Sanford’s dirty dozen includes Darrel Strawberry (really it could be almost any one of the ’86 Mets), Diego Maradona, Barry Bonds, Tanya Harding, Dante Culpepper, Patrick Ewing, Jennifer Capriati, Pete Rose, Marian Jones, Jose Canseco, Mike Tyson, and Kobe Bryant. The exhibit basically takes a look at the darker side of the sports world or as art fag speak defines it, evil incarnate: “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting…”
(Click to enlarge)
ANIMAL first profiled artist Tom Sanford in our “Instincts” issue. The artist who once transformed himself into “Tompac,” a real life caricature of slain rapper Tupac—even losing weight, getting tattooed and pierced to look more like him—has continually evolved with his highly elaborate paintings. This past Friday he showcased a whole new set of work at Leo Koenig gallery. The exhibit, titled “Mr. Hangover,” features hand painted posters depicting pop cultural obsessions like: disposable items, celebrities, athletes, cult leaders, and expensively hyped art objects. Sanford describes his inspiration for the show with his own Tila Tequila’s slightly disheveled words:
“I like people who are really fucked up. …I am very high strung and suffer from multiple personalities. Jane. She’s crazy and she always wants to kill me. Tila. …Poor Girl. … She deserves a break. I do a lot of things that are self-destructive. …I’ve always been a nerdy geek trapped inside a umm… woman’s body. Yea. …That’s me. People love me for some reason. I don’t know why. …I do but I just say I don’t know why just to be modest.” – Tila Tequila, star of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, in a post on her MySpace page.
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