Self-taut Artist Seth West and the Blanc gallery, in the true MAXIMALIST spirit, offer a sincere and gaudy funereal effigy. ‘Jason Rhoades sails, through a Dash Snow, into a Newport, harboring a buxom cargo of organic meth and a Paul McCarthy painting of Mike Kelly’s ghost and Jimi crying Basquiat tears, snorting Darby Crash’s ashes, off the Wammy bar, backstage at the club of broken dreams.’ This mournful, sparkling and complex spectacle is a visual elegy to all the artists in the title and, indeed, honors all dead artists, young and old, whom have cut themselves down with the golden axe of self destruction.
The origins of art, rest in sacred funeary art. The creation of tombs, sacred objects and funeral rites honoring the dead, is the history of humanity. These burial chambers and sacred objects originated in caves and grew into the worlds most magnificent monuments including the Taj Mahal and Pyramids. These crypts and their transcendent rituals were created with the vision of guiding the dead through the treacherous waters of earthly purgatory and aid in the ascent of the spirit to the celestial shores of the eternal afterlife. Blessed Be.
This Funereal shrine is created in the vein of David Altmedj, Red Grooms, William Kentridge, Otto Dix, Cai Guo-Qiang, Banksy, Chris Hedges, Ralph Steadman and Goyas’ ‘Caprichos’ and ‘The disasters of war’. RIP Mike Kelly, Dash Snow, Jason Rhoades, Bobby Blackout 1224-2010, Sweet Pea, Jorge Bangs, Nicholas deMauro, Dave Schwartz, Don Steele, Yauch, Carlos, Adelard Gregory West, Darby Crash and Jimi. We Reminisce over you.