Chuck Sperry

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September 6, 2011 By squirt

High Volume: Rock Art From The Chuck Sperry Archive and Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster Series

An auburn-haired songstress holds a fawn.  Shocking magenta hair falls to the shoulders of a blue nude strapped with artillery.  A 1950s-model cop car rests peacefully at the bottom of the sea, washed in blues and purples revealing a silent white angel.  Each outstanding print on display represents a prominent rock band.  Each was created by Chuck Sperry.

In early 2011, Chuck Sperry, San Francisco artist and co-owner of Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company, made an unprecedented donation to the Library’s Art, Music and Recreation Department of over one-hundred limited edition, hand-printed rock art posters.  Officially entitled, The Chuck Sperry Archive, this collection comprehensively documents the Goldenvoice Music Series (at the Regency and Warfield Theaters) from 2008 to present, as well as selected Firehouse productivity related to the cultural-life of San Francisco.

This collection is exciting in both use of color and variety of content. Each silkscreen print is comprised of up to sixteen colors, applied as individual layers. The pieces reference styles ranging from Japanese nishiki-e, Austrian Expressionism, 1960s psychedelia, to the provocative punk poster tradition of Sperry’s youth.  Musicians such as Neko Case, Danzig, Bad Religion, Nick Cave, Soundgarden and The Black Keys are represented, as are a talented group of Bay Area graphic artists (Ron Donovan, Alex Fischer, Gregg Gordon, Dave Hunter, Alan Hynes, Scott Johnson, Dennis Loren, Chris Shaw, Frank Zio, and Zoltron) who contributed to the Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster series under the art direction of Chuck Sperry.

High Volume will be on display on the Fourth Floor from Oct. 7th, 2011 – January 6th, 2012.  An opening reception will be held in the Latino/Hispanic Room on Thursday, Oct. 20th beginning at 6 p.m.

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: Alan Hynes, Alexandra Fischer, Chris Shaw, Dave Hunter, Dennis Loren, Frank Zio, Gregg Gordon, Ron Donovan, San Francisco Public Library, Scott Johnson, SFPL Art Music and Recreation Department, Zoltron

August 25, 2011 By squirt

Public Enemy at The Regency by Chris Shaw

It was a sincere pleasure to work with Chris Shaw on this poster designed for Public Enemy at The Regency – and hella fun to go and see the show together – WORD! Here’s Chris:

“I was thrilled when Chuck Sperry asked me if I wanted to do a Pub­lic Enemy poster for his Gold­en­voice series, I’m a huge Pub­lic Enemy fan from way back when. Doing a poster for a band you love isn’t always as great as it sounds, some­times you can get hung up on try­ing to get a per­fect image and idea and over­work the art. Try­ing not to over-think things, I decided to go with an old-school polit­i­cal poster, the kind of thing I was mak­ing in the 80’s when I lis­tened to P.E. con­stantly. I’ve made a ton of art over the years lis­ten­ing to that band, and felt like going back to my roots.

Some­how I think I’ve wanted to make this poster for a long time. The last time I made a Pub­lic Enemy poster it was for the Fill­more, I don’t think a riot cop with a bloody baton would have passed pre-screening over there. In par­tic­u­lar, I decided to make this poster a BART cop. BART is a Bay Area tran­sit agency who’s police force has been involved in some very ques­tion­able shoot­ings, have been han­dling them­selves pretty badly, they’ve been in the news a lot. Know­ing the band, the image seemed fit­ting, and timely.

The image is a col­lage of pieces from dif­fer­ent riot cop pho­tos, put together to make an espe­cially sin­is­ter fig­ure. I altered a lot of the small details along the way then sep­a­rated the art into 3 col­ors, stan­dard “pol­i­tics” black & red, plus a bright sil­ver… the sil­ver gives it that rock poster feel. For the vari­ants, we printed a pure cyan instead of the black plate, and used some dif­fer­ent stock. A big thanks Chuck for being the mas­ter of his press, this was an espe­cially clean run of posters.”

Chris will have these posters and vari­ant edi­tions drop­ping at a ran­dom time on his web­site this Fri­day, August 26, 2011. Full poster details, loads of photos and documentation, at chrisshawstudio.com

 

Filed Under: Rock Posters Tagged With: Chris Shaw, Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster Series, Public Enemy, The Regency

August 16, 2011 By squirt

Temporally Bound (Three Gorgons): An installation by Chris Shaw & Chuck Sperry

 

Tem­po­rally Bound (Three Gor­gons): An instal­la­tion by Chris Shaw & Chuck Sperry

June 2011 to January 2012

SFMOMA Window Gallery, Natoma Street, SF
Acrylic on 3 sec­tions of 6 artic­u­lated hard-panels.
Each sec­tion mea­sures 6’8″ x 12′ installed. (6’8″ h x 18′ flat.)

Chris Shaw and Chuck Sperry have been close friends for many years, but have only worked in tan­dem cre­at­ing art on a hand­ful of occa­sions. Both artists have both incor­po­rated and appro­pri­ated con­cepts and imagery from a myr­iad of sources in their designs for Rock Posters and paintings.

“Tem­po­rally Bound” marks this col­lab­o­ra­tion by the two artists not only as an event, but also in the form and sub­ject of the art­work. The work’s form is derived from an asian “accor­dion” book, while the sub­ject, “Three Gor­gons” reflects the artists’ west­ern influ­ences. The free inter­twin­ing of East­ern and West­ern ref­er­ences is not only evoca­tive of the mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal world, but also of San Fran­cisco, a cul­tural melt­ing pot on the Pacific Rim.

The instal­la­tion is com­posed of 3 sec­tions of 6 artic­u­lated hard pan­els, painted in acrylic and hand-made paints. The artic­u­lated form allows the art­work to bend or com­press, the which lets the art­work take almost any form, in 2 or 3 dimen­sional space. Sperry and Shaw’s design con­cept for the Natoma Street win­dows of the SFMOMA Window Gallery called for an 18 foot wide hor­i­zon­tal image to com­press into a 12 foot wide area. The artists chose wooden hard-panels for the instal­la­tion sub­strate which cre­ates a sturdy self-supporting struc­ture with 52º angles, a golden pro­por­tion har­mo­nious to the instal­la­tion space.

In their expe­ri­ences in cre­at­ing Rock Posters, Shaw and Sperry had both worked pre­vi­ously with multi-panel poster images. When com­pos­ing the “Three Gor­gons” the artists paid spe­cial atten­tion to the way the images would frag­ment when the pan­els were in their com­pressed and folded state. Because many of the view­ers pass­ing the instal­la­tion on the side­walk would be approach­ing at very oblique angles, the artists cre­ated semi-symmetrical images that would appear to change and unfold as the viewer passed by. View­ing the art at oblique angles and close prox­im­ity cre­ates a dis­tinct sense of “false abstrac­tion”, while view­ing the pieces from afar (the oppo­site side­walk) gives the viewer cohe­sive, rep­re­sen­ta­tional images of the Three Gorgons.

The 3 Gor­gon images were cre­ated to work indi­vid­u­ally or together as a unit. In tan­dem, the artists each cre­ated their own dis­tinct ver­sions of a Gor­gon (Shaw,left / Sperry, right). While each artist cre­ated their com­po­si­tions and selected color indi­vid­u­ally, cer­tain deci­sions were made together to help enhance the over­all art­work when viewed in a unit. Red and Gold were both cho­sen as main color com­po­nents, which again ref­er­ences East­ern art. The over­all bold col­ors and hard graphic black­line of the Gor­gons addi­tion­ally reflects the artists work as poster artists and print­mak­ers. Sperry and Shaw then worked together to cre­ate the 3rd, cen­ter Gor­gon, a “hybrid” of their styles that would fur­ther bridge and inte­grate their indi­vid­u­ally cre­ated Gor­gon panels.

Sperry’s highly tex­tured Gor­gon (right panel) evokes the paint­ings of Vienna Seces­sion, pri­mar­ily the work of Gus­tav Klimt, who is an influ­ence in Sperry’s use of metal­lic pig­ments and tex­tured lay­er­ings of paint. Sperry’s Gor­gon offers a dynamic man­i­fest inves­ti­ga­tion in paint­ing of the styles and themes of the poster tradition.

The cen­ter, “hybrid” Gor­gon as a co-creation is a meld­ing of the 2 artists ideas and styles. Shaw’s sub­tly ren­dered mother-of-pearl Gorgon’s face is accented with cop­per and black metal-flake paints. Sperry cre­ated the Gorgon’s pre­req­ui­site head of snakes, com­bin­ing gold ser­pen­tine forms with lin­ear rays of sil­ver and cop­per. The two com­po­nents of the image are seam­lessly inte­grated with a bold black­line, char­ac­ter­is­tic of both artists’ work. This piece will also pro­duce the opti­cal illu­sion men­tioned above as the viewer passes the art­work on the sidewalk.

Shaw’s Gor­gon (left sec­tion) is a hard-line and sharp shad­owed, woman’s face in pure yel­low with pupil-less red metal­lic eyes. The Gor­gon is accen­tu­ated by a head­ful of styl­ized gold snakes based on a pre-Inca Moche head­dress. The sym­me­try in the face and forced per­spec­tive cre­ates a dis­tinct “Hol­beinesque” opti­cal illu­sion when viewed in the folded 52º state, as the face will appear to rotate as the viewer passes. Shaw’s work with large-scale stage art fos­tered an inter­est in the way large images can change when viewed at very oblique angles.

               

                

                

                

               

 

 

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: Chris Shaw, Chuck Sperry, SFMOMA

June 10, 2011 By squirt

“Saint Everyone” – Chuck Sperry Painting in SFMOMA Artists Gallery Windows

Saint Everyone, 2011

11 feet by 9 feet

Acrylic and Silkscreen Appliqué on Canvas

I installed my 11 foot by 9 foot acrylic painting, “Saint Everyone,” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art yesterday. It will be on view at the SFMOMA’s Artists Gallery Windows on Minna Street from June 2011 through January 2012. There are florescent lights which are timed to go on at dusk until 2 am.

My large scale painting, “Saint Everyone” is figurative, a postmodern pastiche of Pop, Op and Rock Art. Its theme is inspired from the very recent spontaneous popular movements which have swept the world since January 2011. My iconic figure holds a lotus, it’s unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul. The growth of its pure beauty springs from the fertile mud of its origin and grows into a benign spiritual promise. The figure is a loose appropriation and is re-imagined by the artist from a rock poster created by The Big Five (Mouse, Wilson, Griffin, Kelley, and Moscoso) for the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 1987. The Summer of Love in 1967 is the San Francisco analog of the change that is sweeping the world in 2011. This image was originally used on a poster I designed and printed for “American Artifact, The Rise of American Rock Art,” directed by Merle Becker. Appliqué disks employ elements of Op Art, inspired as they are from the work of Martin Sharpe, the British psychedelic artist. They are produced via silkscreen and applied – like a poster would on the street – in rhythmic patternization. The disks suggest decentralization or cell structure. I wanted to combine acrylic painting and silkscreen techniques in a seamless composition, and “Saint Everyone” is the result.

This painting was a year in planning and six weeks in execution. Renée de Cossio curated the project which involves me, Chris Shaw and Ron Donovan. Renee has been a constant source of support and inspiration and I thank her and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for making this show happen.

Make sure to check the websites of my collaborating artist friends Chris Shaw and Ron Donovan to see their paintings and art work. They will be posting pictures and more very soon!

The six weeks spent working in this resulted in scores of paint layers, many in florescent acrylic, silkscreen and painting processes. There are certainly at least 30 layers of paint on this and the depth shows. The red blue chroma literally stopped traffic yesterday when Chris Shaw and I were hanging these – someone driving down Minna Street actually skidded to a stop to look at our paintings and ask our names.

I have several process videos of the painting in progress. The first is a short montage of photos I took throughout the process:

Below are some of the more photogenic processes in timelapse. First, removing a mask I cut with an exacto knife to paint the gold Op Art patterns that surround the figure:

Next, I’m printing the appliqué optical patterns on very nice Japanese rice paper that resonates with and continues the motif painted in gold:

Here’s a timelapse video of me applying the rice paper op patterns to the canvas with gel medium under and gloss medium over to fully embed the rice paper to the painting surface:

Finally here are some beautiful photographs taken by my friend Stephen Abramson of the final reactive blue color getting layed down. Click to see larger:

Filed Under: Events, News, Original Art Tagged With: Chris Shaw, Chuck Sperry, Renée de Cossio, Ron Donovan, Saint Everyone, SFMOMA

May 27, 2011 By squirt

SFMOMA Artists Gallery Windows presents Chuck Sperry, Chris Shaw & Ron Donovan

Ron Donovan, Chris Shaw, & Chuck Sperry

June 11, 2011 — January 12, 2012

Bay Area rock poster art contemporaries Chris Shaw, Chuck Sperry, and Ron Donovan stand out amongst their predecessors in the Bay Area tradition of poster making that spans nearly 50 years. Through their prolific bodies of work, the masterful artists have brought inno­vation, invention, and new meaning to this art form. Each distinc­tively fuses propaganda, imagery, text, and historical art references with Pop and rock-poster art sensibilities to create accessible, relat­able imagery that is at once empowering and undeniably populist.

Minna Street windows

A collaborative art work involving three individually created window installations, Donovan, Shaw, and Sperry layer silkscreen, painting, collage, and mixed media to transform two-dimensional imagery into three-dimensional expression. Showing reverence for man’s commu­nicative nature, they reference the renewal of the idea that art has a purpose.

Natoma Street windows – Temporally Bound

Temporally Bound is a “visual improvisation” between Sperry and Shaw. Its form is drawn from the Asian accordion-style bound scroll to recognize the Pacific Rim as the gathering center of the art world and to emphasize post modern appropriated multiculturalism. Sperry and Shaw express a realization of the temporal, time-punctuated nature of street and poster art. By binding the panels together in monumental book form, the artists create a visual record of events through a modality of time. Additionally, through binding invention, the contextualization of visual imagery, and a reassigning of repre­sentational meaning, the artists transform ephemeral events and experiences by creating a lexicon of a shared cultural visual memory.

 

The “Windows Program” uses the SFMOMA Garage’s street-level win­dows located at 150 Natoma and 147 Minna Street (between Third and New Montgomery Streets) to showcase artwork. The program, organized  by Renée de Cossio of the Artists Gallery, invites some of the area’s most ambitious artists to transform these every day spaces into compelling exhibitions that the passerby can view round the clock.

 

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: Artists Gallery, Chris Shaw, Chuck Sperry, Renée de Cossio, Ron Donovan, SFMOMA

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Online Release with EQL
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About Chuck Sperry

Chuck Sperry lives in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, where he’s made his particular style of rock poster designs for over 20 years. He operates Hangar 18, a silkscreen print studio, located in Oakland. Learn More…

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Sperry Books: “Color x Color” • “Helikon” • “Chthoneon” • “Idyllion”

Latest Blog Posts

  • Sperry Solo “Universal” Coming to Paris
  • Sperry in Popland 2025 at KochxBos Gallery, Amsterdam
  • Chuck Sperry’s Alice Donut Poster
  • Chuck Sperry’s “The Mystic” & “Iphigenia” Blotters • 
Online Release with EQL
  • Available Now: Chuck Sperry’s Newest Protest Art Poster

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