Chuck Sperry

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  • Books: Color x Color • Helikon • Chthoneon • Idyllion

April 4, 2025 By squirt

Available Now: Chuck Sperry’s Newest Protest Art Poster

“Our Future, Our Democracy” (No Autocracy!) 2025 • 18 x 24 • offset poster

Now available exclusively online at the Harman Projects online store.⁠

Harman Projects and Chuck Sperry are pleased to announce “Our Future, Our Democracy” (No Autocracy!) 2025.

This limited edition offset lithograph is a continuation of the artist’s deeply entrenched activism, a key element to his artistic and social practice.

Available online starting Friday, April 4th at 10am Pacific exclusively online at the Harman Projects online store.

I am encouraged by the coming nationwide, mass mobilization on April 5, 2025 — organized in part by political action group Indivisible. 

It’s important to exercise one’s first amendment right to free speech, and so inspired, I created a 2025 offset variant of my “Our Future, Our Democracy” poster. My refreshed design calls for “No Autocracy! No Oligarchy! No Dictatorship!” 

Join our day of national mobilization on April 5, and stay tuned for many American demonstrations to follow. 

The time to defend our democracy is now. 

— Chuck Sperry

Filed Under: Art Prints Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Harman Projects, Our Democracy, Our Future

January 9, 2025 By squirt

Thank You for Sharing an Incredible 2024 • Year In Review

Photo: Shaun Roberts

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I would like to give all my friends and supporters a heartfelt thank you for sharing an incredible 2024, full of amazing events and watershed achievements! 

2024 bore witness to San Francisco’s warm welcome of my work as I received a lifetime membership to the de Young and Legion of Honor Museums in appreciation for works which rest in their permanent collection. Additionally, the de Young and Legion of Honor Museum Stores now carry “Color x Color” – which is available at the link below. 

SIGNED Color x Color at Museum Stores

Artist Chuck Sperry at the Art of Noise exhibition at SFMOMA. May 2024. Photo: Shaun Roberts.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art brought my work into their permanent collection and showed these pieces in “The Art of Noise” exhibition through spring and summer. It’s thrilling to receive this institutional acknowledgement.

Opening reception. “Home Show” a Chuck Sperry retrospective at The Haight Street Art Center, San Francisco. On view from October 17th through November 24, 2024. Photo: Shaun Roberts.

Meanwhile, in my neighbourhood of the Haight-Ashbury I received three shows across the year: “My Minds Eye” at Psychedelic SF Art Gallery, “Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective” at the Haight Street Art Center, and The Rock Poster Society, Festival of Rock Posters which I never miss at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. All three shows were hearty reminders of my love of the city and a celebration of the living soul of San Francisco.

Packed house at Harman Projects for Chuck Sperry’s April opening of “Only Human” in New York City.

Feeling buoyed by hometown acceptance, Harman Projects launched my exhaustive solo show “Only Human” in art capital New York City, and followed with Art On Paper NYC. It was amazing to see everyone in New York City share in such an amazing celebration!

Europe called again with “Popland 4” at KochxBos Gallery, curated by amazing French artist Ciou in Amsterdam. “Only Human” solo travelled to L’Oeil Ouvert Gallery in Paris, where Beaux Arts Magazine dubbed my show one of the top five most captivating shows in the art capital of Europe. Both shows made waves on both sides of the Atlantic.

I finished the year with a solo at L’Oeil Ouvert, Paris – “Future In The Balance” which is on view until January 31 with work available through the gallery at the link below. I’m happy to report that my solo received major attention, listing on The City of Paris’ official event website, Sortir a Paris among other notices, and even took to the airwaves on OUI FM. See the link below for my available works.

AVAILABLE WORKS at L’Oeil Ouvert, Paris

I teamed up with Vote Equality, Spoke Art and The Roxie Theater to produce a benefit screening of RATIFIED, a film documenting the struggle for ERA. My poster was made the official movie poster while this spirited and important film moves into distribution and streaming next year.

I’m thrilled my work showed with Harman Projects at CONTEXT Art Miami during Art Basel, Miami Art Week – and in appreciation of San Francisco love, a very limited Artist Edition of 100 “Home Show” posters is available now by joining Harman Projects EQL launch below.

HOME SHOW EQL LAUNCH

Also there are a very limited number of my iconic “Joy” and “Pneuma” wood panels which were shown in Miami and are available through Harman Project’s CONTEXT Art Fair exhibition viewing room – see link below.

AVAILABLE WORKS HARMAN PROJECTS AT CONTEXT

I am so very grateful for an outstanding year and the support of the museum teams, gallery teams, volunteers, friends who showed up to help carry the day, and friends and supporters who came to share and revelled in the joy and love of creative energy. I’m heartened by our human family, and encouraged by your emotion, soul, light and laughter. Here’s to 2025! Please take care of each other and assert your human spirit!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Art Basel Miami, Art of Noise, Art On Paper NYC, Beaux Arts Magazine, Ciou, Color X Color, Context Art Fair, de Young Museum, Haight Street Art Center, Harman Projects, KochxBos, l'Oeil Ouvert, Legion of Honor, Psychedlic SF Gallery, Ratified, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA, Spoke Art, TRPS, Vote Equality

November 15, 2024 By squirt

Sperry x Harman Projects x CONTEXT: Art Miami 2024

Joy, 2024
20 x 30
Edition of 30
Screen print on oak panel
Signed and numbered

Pneuma, 2024
30 x 20
Edition of 30
Screen print on oak panel
Signed and numbered

Home Show, A Chuck Sperry Retrospective, 2024
19 x 35
Artist Edition of 100
7 colors on cream paper
Signed and numbered

 

HARMAN PROJECTS • CONTEXT: Art Miami

Booth A16

Harman Projects is pleased to be returning to CONTEXT: Art Miami for Miami Art Week 2024. We will be located at booth A16 which will be familiar to those who visited us last year at the fair so if you’re in town we hope to see you there!

Featuring:
Esao Andrews | BEZT | DALeast | Mark Drew | Alison Friend | Frank Gonzales | Aaron Horkey | Sarah Joncas | Josh Keyes | Scott Listfield | Louis Michel | Chuck Sperry | Martin Whatson | Martin Wittfooth | Hama Woods

Address:
The CONTEXT Art Miami Pavillion
One Herald Plaza
NE 14th Street & Biscayne Bay
Miami, FL 33132
(Google Maps)

Dates:
Platinum VIP Preview: Tuesday December 3, 2024 | 11:00am – 1:00pm
VIP Preview: Tuesday December 3, 2024 | 1:00pm – 4:00pm

General Admission:
Tuesday, December 3, 2024 | 4:00pm – 9:00pm
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 |  11:00am – 7:00pm
Thursday, December 5, 2023 |  11:00am – 7:00pm
Friday, December 6, 2023 |  11:00am – 7:00pm
Saturday, December 7, 2023 |  11:00am – 7:00pm
Sunday, December 8, 2023 |  11:00am – 6:00pm

Filed Under: Rock Posters Tagged With: Art Basel Miami, Chuck Sperry, Context Art Fair, Harman Projects

September 4, 2024 By squirt

Sperry at Art on Paper New York with Harman Projects

Harman Projects is thrilled to announce our return to the Art on Paper fair this September! The Gallery’s third presentation at the New York art fair will feature new work by Sandra Chevrier, Cryptik, Huntz Liu, Travis Louie, Martin Whatson, and Hama Woods alongside recently shown works by artists Petite Luxures and Chuck Sperry as well as selections from the Moleskine Project!

If you are local to New York City and plan on attending the fair, we will be located at booth #D01 and tickets can be purchased at the link here. We hope to see you there!

Select VIP Preview
Thursday, September 5, 2024: 5—6pm
Exclusive Entry for Select VIPs

Opening Evening
Thursday, September 5, 2024: 6—9pm
Exclusive Entry for Fair Pass Holders & Select VIP

Public Hours
Friday, September 6, 2024: 11am—7pm
Saturday, September 7 2024: 11am—7pm
Sunday, September 8, 2024: 11am—6pm

Pier 36:
299 South Street,
New York, NY 10002

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Art On Paper, Chuck Sperry, Harman Projects, New York City

April 27, 2024 By squirt

“Chuck Sperry’s Long and Multi-faceted Career” – Juxtapoz

Juxtapoz • April 26, 2024 • by Katherine Hamilton

It may surprise those who are familiar with artist Chuck Sperry’s long and multifaceted career that the man is, in fact, just one man. From art shows to key-note speeches to making some of the most iconic rock posters of his time, Sperry’s prolific output seems like the work of many hands—and it is, in a way, as the artist has embraced collaboration his entire career. For Sperry’s latest solo exhibition with Harman Projects in New York City, Only Human, the Oakland-based artist turns inward, inspired by the faults and powers being human can give us.

Before his solo exhibition opened in NYC, Sperry caught up with Harman Projects to discuss his political activism, his muse series, and what he loves about being human.

Harman Projects: Chuck, you’re best known for your psychedelic rock music posters, especially the “muses” series—some of which are on view right now at Harman Projects in NYC. I actually want to start by asking you about your more political work. You’ve been involved in many social movements, specifically ones against United States imperialism, emboldening the power of the people. Have you always considered your work to be political, or yourself to be a political artist?
Chuck Sperry: I have always considered my work to be political and accessible. I’ve focused my art to appeal to the broad general public. I make art for regular folks like us; I share my audience’s ideals, aspirations, and goals. My consciousness is that of a working stiff, and I never forget it. It is my hands and labor that brought me here—where I am now. And if I achieve some great or rare accomplishment, I try to do so humbly, remembering everything good comes with hard work.

Photo: Shaun Roberts

I also remember you saying you took inspiration from the French Situationist posters of May 1968 demonstrations and fellow Oakland artist Emory Douglas who made work for the Black Panthers from 1967-1980.
I had the distinct honor to work with Emory Douglas on projects and reprints of his classic Black Panther images. He gave me permission to reprint three of his amazing Black Panther Party newspaper designs in large format color screen prints on cotton rag paper as art prints. These were sold at Lazarides in the UK, and at Spoke Art in San Francisco way back when Ken Harman and I met. I hooked him up with Emory right away.

I “opened” for Emory at a gigantic design conference called Trimarchi in Mar del Plata (near Buenos Aires) Argentina. Our powerpoint lectures were in a basketball stadium. The place held 5000-6000 people in the audience. It took a fair amount of willpower for me to take the stage in front of that many people. At any rate, my lecture covered the history of concert posters and counter-culture that led from the psychedelic sixties to the present. After me, Emory headlined, starting off with a resounding: “Power to the People!” His lecture was very inspiring and brought many to tears.

Emory is the real deal. Me, I’m more in the entertainment space. But building the bridge between those two worlds—activism and entertainment—serves a function. I love to do that.

A few years ago I met Alexandre D’Huy, a French artist who invited me to the École National Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris to print a punk rock poster I designed for a French group called Operation S. The studio I printed in was the Atelier Populaire where Guy Debord and the Situationiste collective printed all their classic activist posters during the student strike in solidarity with the unions in May 1968. I used the same press! A perfect mix of music and activism on hallowed ground.

What an experience! It seems the music culture you often made posters for was never totally disconnected from these political movements.
I don’t really see any difference between politics and music. When a singer brings everyone together and makes their heart sing as one, it is a political act. To do so for the right cause is excellent, even better. For instance, the Power to the Peaceful events in Golden Gate Park organized by Michael Franti was a great melding of music and politics. Michael brought thousands of people out to Golden Gate Park to see a show, and invited all sorts of political action groups to the event to educate everybody. The Power to the Peaceful shows were quintessentially San Francisco at its finest.

Speaking of music, your work will be featured in the SFMOMA exhibition Art of Noise, an expansive museum exhibition examining music-centered design in San Francisco’s booming era of counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s. You and your work were instrumental in creating the visual culture of an entire era defined by music and gathering.
I’m incredibly grateful to be included in the Art of Noise exhibition at SFMOMA, which will run May 4 to August 18, 2024. With Art of Noise I’ll have a selection of my concert posters enter the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It’s a dream come true! Many thanks to museum curator Joseph Becker, who took time to discuss the exhibition at length, make a visit to my studio in Oakland, and refine the print selections to very solid pieces to be shown and permanently collected. I bet you’re dying to know which ones. I’ll leave that as a surprise for those who support the museum and buy tickets to the event. It will knock your socks off, and I’m in great company.

“The Black Keys, Outside Lands” SFMOMA selection of Sperry concert poster for its permanent collection

When you look back at your career, what are three moments—maybe forks in the road—that pushed you into the career you’ve had?
I would put moving to New York City high on the list as an important juncture. I lived on the Lower East Side right in the wake of the Art Boom of the 1980s. There, I met Seth Tobocman and Peter Kuper and all the editors of World War 3 Illustrated, America’s longest running political comic book. Those encounters brought me into contact with so many legends and luminaries, both artistic and political. Living in New York City as a fledgling artist made me reach higher, run faster.

Moving out of New York City and relocating to San Francisco was the smartest thing I ever did. I formed an artistic game plan in San Francisco: I took up with all the underground cartoonist legends of the West Coast; I started printing screen prints with Ron Donovan and Orion Landau. Together, we formed a print studio called Psychic Sparkplug, making posters for great bands at great clubs: Trocadero, Slims, Covered Wagon, Golden West (Albuquerque, NM) and Jabberjaw (Los Angeles, CA). We made a bunch of rowdy screen printed posters for amazing music in short order. It was a blast! We used to regularly bowl with Frank Kozik and a number of rock bands and record label folks. The San Francisco scene blenderized art and music with a dash of booze.

Striking off on my own, being a solo act so to speak, was perhaps my third “fork” moment. Being able to call my own shots really made my decisions more rational and straightforward. By doing that, I was able to forge my own associations with galleries, musicians, and other artists, and to collaborate effectively. I met Ken Harman during this time. His support and guidance has brought my art to amazing heights. Meanwhile, it has been up to me to raise my game, dig in deeper to my subject matter, and fill out the details of my artistic vision.

On the road to discovering the dimensions of my artistic vision, I produced three art books: Helikon, Chthoneon, and Idyllion—and one gigantic 752 page poster book that covers my entire artistic path: Color x Color: The Sperry Poster Archive 1980-2020. Seeing where I’ve been helps me to plot out the next fork in the road.

SPERRY’S BOOKS AVAILABLE HERE

I want to ask about your influences. I read somewhere that you align your poster works with the styles of artists from the Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau movements. How do you feel these movements intersect with Psychedelic art?
The Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau brought art out of elitist settings, moving art and art objects into peoples’ lives. It was a part of the beginning of the process of democratization in the arts. Industrial arts and crafts were brought into the artistic sphere, and could be used as artistic mediums to express oneself. These ideas were consciously re-evaluated by the radical artists and social experimenters of the 1960s, like [music promoter] Chet Helms. Helms deeply appreciated Art Nouveau and its populist power, and through his aesthetic interests opened artists to create psychedelic poster art of the 1960’s.

These same democratic threads of thinking and social movement appear to me to have most recently expressed itself through Urban art. I love that my work is often categorized as contemporary Urban art, although usually I resist categories and prefer instead to keep working towards my own star.

You’ve been working through the Muse theme for quite some time. What refreshes your interest in it through each design?
I am a very stubborn person, to be honest, so that’s one reason I’ve stuck to this theme. When I started I never thought it was possible to make so much headway into such vast territory. The theme is incredibly rich, the territory is vast. Technically, I find refinements, new color combinations and printing techniques I can make in the next piece, each time I make one.

It’s a circle, like a bar of improvisational music that returns to the top richer and more focused. And that is why I stay with it. It brings me so much discovery, always! I’ve found that my dealing with mythological material for so long, and keeping much of it loosely structured around the Orphic Hymns, I’ve discovered a lot about myself through it. It brought me a lot of personal insight that has changed my life for the better.

You’ve also mentioned that as you’ve done this series, you’ve gone deeper and deeper into Greek Mythology. Has this influence been applied in non-Muse works? Or are you being strict with yourself and keeping it to this single series?
The ancient beliefs are pretty much pervasive in my life and art, and it has spilled over into every sphere. Strict? No, I am drawn towards freedom, not stricture. I try to remember that freedom brings its own responsibilities and concerns. For instance: I bought a house in the South of France in 2019. Bold, free move, right? But it’s a house [laughs] so that freedom comes with house-sized responsibilities. I like to say I “adult” in two languages.

Okay, but here’s the influenced-by-myths part. It’s in the South of France, which has Greek and Roman ruins everywhere. There’s a footpath behind the place that has to be ancient. The woods hold a mystery as though there are dryads and nymphs living there. Now, I grow and tend olives. There’s laurel and grapevines and figs. In a way, I’m living inside those ancient stories on the Mediterranean and pulled into those rhythms of life, which I only used to read about.

At any rate, myths are pretty blurry stories to begin with. They all have various tellings. Different versions come from regional or historical differences. Some versions are an amalgam of cultures. Isn’t that complexity so recognizably contemporary in respect to truth? The more you bear down on the facts, the more elusive reality becomes. It’s very quantum or fractal disposition. I find more and more that I am certain of less and less. That said, I always focus on the progressive and contemporary resonances in these stories, and think there is much of value to contemporary thinkers in progressive movements.

Have you noticed any narrative or stylistic arcs looking back at your career? I.e. where you’ve been versus where you’ve landed?
Long ago I was obsessed with trash culture. The arc has been to shift my attention towards more universal themes. I’m concerned with the collective unconscious and its expression and projection into the rituals of daily life or into the appearance of things. My earlier interest in trash culture was an interest in its relationship to those unconscious archetypes. Now, I like to imagine those archetypes in and of themselves. Archetypes are projected upon my mind in human form, I suppose, because I’m only human.

Studio visit with Chuck Sperry at Hangar 18 in Oakland, CA.

I know you’ve experimented with other mediums through your long career, but often returning to silk screen. After all these years, why have you stuck with screen printing over other printing mediums?
I’m excited by screen printing! It’s a joy to go to work. My studio is a big playground full of all the toys it has taken a lifetime to gather. Photographically exposing screens from film is a magical chemical and physical process. Printing and layering and mixing inks is alchemy at its finest. Using my hands. Interfacing with the paper and the result of layering the inks. All of it is sweet music. I’m a very lucky artist. I’m forever grateful to have this life dedicated to making beautiful things and sharing beautiful ideas with people.

What inspired the title of your latest exhibition with Harman Projects, Only Human?
I was inspired by an acknowledgement of my limitations—that I’m only human, mortal and fallible. Only Human refers to my commitment to craft and manual art production in tangible media. The idea behind Only Human is to show the way forward in the 21st Century: that art made by humans for humans in physical reality is imbued with the soul of our humanity, our uniquely mortal heart and immortal spirit, drawn from our human culture. Our human collective unconscious and experience will transcend the current imperative for non-human and virtual intervention in the art space.

Such art delights the gods, and perhaps will delight you too. I hope so.

Only Human is on view through Saturday, May 4th at Harman Projects, 210 Rivington Street New York, NY. Studio portraits by Shaun Roberts.

Filed Under: Press & Reviews Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Harman Projects, Juxtapoz

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Latest News

  • 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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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…

Archives

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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