There is one piece in the show called Easy Target, which is a portrait of Martin Luther King. “Some of the songs are more attuned to today’s world than when I wrote it,” he said. Just as his songs from 2008 dealt with injustices (like the song Our Country, where he calls on the government to “help the poor and common man”), the paintings do here, too. But all along, Mellencamp has fuelled his activism into his paintings.
JOHN MELLENCAMP ART SERIES
The 66-year-old artist and musician may be known for his hit singles like Hurt So Good from the Footloose soundtrack in 1982, his former days as “John Cougar” or for co-founding the Farm Aid benefit concert series with Willie Nelson. “I thought the album approached a lot of different emotions and feelings in the human condition,” said Mellencamp, “and that these paintings did, too.” Life, Death, Love and Freedom features more than 25 new political paintings that reflect on the past to see the present situation. Now, the album returns to the spotlight for its 10th anniversary at the musician’s forthcoming solo exhibition at ACA Galleries in New York, which opens on 26 April. McCain stopped playing the songs at his rallies, many of which were taken from Mellencamp’s 2008 album Life, Death, Love and Freedom. “But we said, ‘You might want to relisten to these songs.’” “We said, ‘You understand what side of the political landscape Mellencamp is part of, please know his music is for everybody,’” said Mellencamp over the phone from his Indiana home. Mellencamp lives and works in Bloomington, Indiana.In 2008, the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, was blasting John Mellencamp songs at his rallies, until the musician asked him to stop.
John Mellencamp has exhibited his work in major galleries and museums across the United States, including: The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville The Museum of Art – Deland, Florida and the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia. A thick shadow at the top of the painting suggests the brim of the figure’s cowboy hat, on which sits four packs of American Spirit cases – and the LIFE Magazine logo, while in the bottom corner of the painting sits a jack of hearts from a deck of playing cards. Often rendered as a rugged cowboy in nature with a lit cigarette, the figure quickly became an iconic representation of masculinity in America, as well as an important trope within art history. “Mellencamp paints handsomely grotesque portraits in oil that are as solemn and stirring as his hit songs are catchy and inspirational - depicting existential scenes and human beings ridden with the angst of the everyday” notes critic Doug McClemont.Īnother highlight is Jack of Hearts, a large-scale assemblage depicting the Marlboro Man, common in tobacco advertising campaigns the latter half of the Twentieth Century. Widely credited with influencing the development of rock and roll music, Dean – like Mellencamp – was born in Indiana and remains an iconic counter-cultural figure. But though that foundation is German, the evolved result is decidedly American, with the brash and snappy visual rhythms of our streets, lives, politics and passions.Īn exhibition highlight is A Bed of Nails, 2017, dimly-rendered portrait of American actor James Dean, the canvas embedded with a grid of nails with a line of wire surrounding the nails to frame the subject’s face. Heavily influenced by the German Expressionists, such as Otto Dix and Max Beckmann, whose anguish over human brutality and corruption speaks to his deep feelings about social justice, Mellencamp’s imagery takes its inspiration from the same sources as his music: the oppressive authority and social struggles of the working man and woman. This is Mellencamp’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, and will showcase two bodies of work: Mellencamp’s sculptural assemblages and series of portraits. ACA Galleries is pleased to announce contemporary artist John Mellencamp’s new exhibition, Life, Death, Love, Freedom, opening on Apin New York.
0 kommentar(er)
