Street Artist Dan Witz Signs Copies of His New Book “In Plain View”

Dan Witz is a 30+ year veteran of New York City street life, beginning in the late 70’s as an art student in the bombed out East Village, inspired simultaneously by the punk rock explosion and an analogous expression of the discontent that graffiti contained.

Since then he has explored a great deal about how we relate to art on the street, bringing a skilled analyst mind to play with perception, feeling, and our peripheral intake of information. In recent years his studio work has finely combined new digital possibilities with the more traditional oil based tools, producing startling realism and an auric glow that calms and unsettles.

Dan Witz “True Love” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Witz’s hyper-real street installations have become known for being missed by the busy passerby because of his uncanny and witty ability to integrate them into the urban environment below our perceptual radar. More recently his pieces have grown thematically darker and evermore perfect in their placement, daring you to overlook them.

With the release of this 30 year collection of work, Witz can clearly stake his claim as one of the forerunners of the current explosion of street art and it’s various discontents. Even in his controlled approach to study, practice, and implementation, the underlying punk rocker rips through the fabric of any bourgeois malaise you may be tempted to slip into.

Dan Witz (Photo© Jaime Rojo)

Wednesday June 30th

Spoonbill And Sugartown
At 7:00 PM In Williamsburg

Spoonbill and Sugartown

218 Bedford Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718/387-7322
www.spoonbillbooks.com

Dan Witz, born 1957, Chicago, IL, attended Cooper Union in New York City’s East Village. In 1982 he received a NEA grant and in 1992 and 2000 fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His first book, “The Birds of Manhattan” was published in 1983 by Skinny Books. Solo exhibitions include Semaphore Gallery NY (1985,1986), Clementine Gallery (1996), StolenSpace, London (2007); DFN Gallery NY (2003-5, 6, 7, 8, 10) and Carmichael Gallery, LA (2009). Group exhibitions include: Buying Time: Nourishing Excellence, Sotheby’s NY(2001); and Fifteen, NYFA Fellows at Deutsche Bank, NY (1999). Submission (curated by Juxtapoz) Fuse Gallery NY (2005); From The Streets of Brooklyn, Think space Art Gallery, LA (2009) and Beach Blanket Bingo, Jonathan Levine Gallery NY(2009). Dan lives and works in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

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