Chuck Sperry

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February 7, 2020 By squirt

Father of Rock Posters, Psychedelic Master, Rest In Peace Wes Wilson

San Francisco Chronicle • January 30, 2020 • by Aidin Vaziri
/  SFMOMA • Twitter • January 29, 2020

Filed Under: Press & Reviews Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, San Francisco Chronicle, SFMOMA, Wes Wilson

January 2, 2018 By squirt

2017 Year In Review: 25 Amazing Prints in ’17

 

Read More: Sperry’s beautiful new art book, “Helikon, The Muses of Chuck Sperry” (2017)

Filed Under: News Tagged With: 311, Conscious Alliance, Dave Matthews, Demeter, Eleutheria, Erato, Greensky Bluegrass, Helikon, Jerry Garcia, Leftover Salmon, March For Science, Ostracon, Pretenders, Primus, Queens of the Stone Age, SFMOMA, String Cheese Incident, Supersuckers, SXSW, TRPS, Twiddle, Women's March

November 9, 2017 By Hangar 18

The Pioneer: Protest Posters From 1960s to Present Exhibited at SFMOMA by Shoib Ahmadzai

Protest posters from 1960s to present exhibited at SFMOMA
Political posters at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

From The Pioneer: Protest Posters From 1960s to Present Exhibited at SFMOMA by Shoib Ahmadzai

Social justice political posters from the 1960s to present day, including those relating to the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter, are on display at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

“I really like the juxtaposition of the old and the new posters,” stated Yagna Madala, a Los Angeles resident and modern art fan who visited San Francisco for a vacation.

The exhibit comes at a time of growing political tension in the country which has promoted a deep divide between both political parties on issues such as the rescindment of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), social activist movements such as Black Lives Matter and increased hostilities with North Korea.

Various anti-war, Black Panthers rally, anti-Nazi and pro-free speech posters decorate the glass protected wall in this exhibit, titled “Get with the Action.” It started on Sept. 16 and is scheduled to continue until spring 2018.

The exhibit, located in a small room on the third floor, stands out from the regular photography art displays. According to Ian Wagner, a museum visitor experience assistant at the MOMA, it is one of the most popular exhibits on the floor.

Read More

This is OUR CITY and we can SHUT IT DOWN, Chuck Sperry, 2011.

Filed Under: Press & Reviews Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, SFMOMA, Shoib Ahmadzai, The Pioneer

October 14, 2017 By squirt

Sperry in “Get with the Action” Exhibit at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

SFMOMA Chuck Sperry

I am very proud my poster “This Is Our City And We Can Shut It Down” is now being exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Get with the Action
Political Posters from the 1960s to Now
September 16, 2017–Spring 2018

Bursting into the public realm in the mid-1960s, the protest poster has been used all over the world to incite change and empower the voice of the people. This exhibition presents the political poster as a powerful tool for organizing and activating communities in response to some of the most pressing issues over the past 50 years, from the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements to social justice, immigration, environmental causes, and more.

Get with the Action, a title taken from a screenprint by the artist and progressive activist nun Corita Kent, explores the medium of the poster as a communication device — one intended to be publically displayed, produced en masse, and often ephemeral — to inform and energize a wide audience. The works on view, focused on the creative output of the Bay Area and beyond, highlight the power of applied graphic design and its utility in presenting information while rallying citizens around a cause.

Curated in three rotations over six months, each presentation of Get with the Action calls attention to SFMOMA’s commitment to graphic design and to the continually relevant, if not urgent, movements of our time.

Read more about Chuck Sperry & his newest art book here

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Get with the Action, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA

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

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  • TRPS Is Back! Festival of Posters ’22

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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

  • Chuck Sperry Teams Up with Meier Skis
  • Sperry at Schneider Museum of Art through April 2023
  • “Idyllion”, a Chuck Sperry Solo Exhibition and Book Signing in Geneva
  • “Idyllion”, a Chuck Sperry Solo Exhibition & Book Signing in Paris
  • TRPS Is Back! Festival of Posters ’22

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