In this economy, it's pretty much a no-brainer that if you're buying art at all, you're looking for the bargains. (Of course what constitutes a bargain is relative. Last week, a New York art dealer snapped up a late Picasso previously owned by contemporary artist Julian Schnabel for a cool $7.7 million — just undercutting the projected sale price; a steal of sorts.)
That's why Chris Parks, a St. Petersburg artist and owner of Pale Horse Design and Gallery, feels hopeful that his latest exhibition — a one-night event hosted by Czar nightclub in Ybor City — will be especially successful. For starters, admission is free, despite a nightlong slate of DJs, sponsor-provided liquor shots and product giveaways that would easily warrant a cover charge. Better still, the artworks on display — all of which are limited edition, screen-printed t-shirts — cost $20. Parks, who typically organizes shows of much pricier paintings and prints at his gallery, says it's a relief (particularly given the economy) to put on a show where everyone who walks through the door can afford to become a collector.
"It's a gallery show more for people like me," he says. "Just come in your T-shirt."
The premise of Back In Black 2 — that a screen-printed T can be a work of art — is pretty much old hat. But with a natty website (where visitors can read interviews with the artists, browse pics from last year's event and purchase this year's T-shirts through May 31) and a distinctive event format, the show promises to be memorable for its execution, as well as for its art.
Visitors start by picking the shirt art they want from an array of 21 designs on display on the dance floor of Czar's Imperial Theater. Their selections (indicated on tickets) then pass through the hands of screen-printers on stage, who print each piece on demand. Pick your T-shirt up afterwards, and you're good to go. The only hard part is selecting a design — from Jimiyo's Star Wars-Freddy Krueger mash-up to Julie West's sleekly surreal feline creatures (who appear, in the artist's aqua-inked design, to be taking the most adorable tandem poo in the history of animalia), the options are diverse.
The only limitation that's a bit of a bummer is that the T-shirts come in only one color. You guessed it: black.
While the artists involved aren't exactly household names, the brands they've created artwork for are: Kidrobot (New Yorker Tristan Eaton); Van Halen, Blink 182, Guinness (California-based Maxx242); Vans, Nike, Stussy (123 Klan of Montreal). Flip through the pages of art magazine Juxtapoz, and you might find a story about California artist Munk One, aka Jose A. Mercado (in the magazine's January issue), or see an ad for Maxx242's line of skate shoes for Osiris.
Parks, who conceived the Back In Black concept with Orlando graphic designer Hydro74, aka Joshua M. Smith, hopes visitors will learn something more about an artist or two whose work they may have seen in commercial contexts without knowing who created it. That's not to say you'll only ever see work by these artists on branded products. Several of Back In Black 2's participants — Tristan Eaton/Thunderdog Studios, Brian Morris and MAD, aka Jeremy Madl — were just featured in The Vader Project, an exhibit of artists' reinterpretations of Darth Vader's distinctive helmet, at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh earlier this year.
An event like Back In Black 2's relation to the increasing merger of the worlds of "fine art" and "commercial art," and the shrinking relevance of such a distinction, renders it all the more intriguing. (By coincidence, an exhibition of screenprints by Warhol — arguably the progenitor of today's complex intermingling of art and pop culture — opens at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg this weekend.)
Still, the ideal of life as a full-time artist, working for self-expression and rarely if ever for corporate clients, remains extant as a measure of success. Some, like ISO50, aka Scott Hansen, are living it; the artist's musical alter ego, Tycho, will close out Back In Black 2 with a combination electronic-music-and-moving-images performance at midnight that might be the evening's show-stealer.
Just be sure that if you want to snag a shirt by any of this year's artists, you do it at the event or online before May 31. Parks learned that the hard way last year when he forgot to order one of his own designs before the deadline. Rules are rules, even for the exhibition's co-founder: Once the edition is closed, you'll just have to wait for next year and Back In Black 3.
This article appears in May 13-19, 2009.