Nothing to lose your head about, but you’ll be thrilled to hear about the long-anticipated release of the new monograph by the ingenious troublemaker and largely incognito Chicago Street Artist DONT FRET.
Emerging on the streets for a decade or so with painted wit and misshapen characters wheatpasted where you least expect them, he’s the sharp observer and human humorist whose work is as brilliant as your cousin Marlene, as funny as Johnny at the funeral home, as handsome as the guys behind the counter at Publican Quality Meats.
Well, maybe not that handsome.
“This is place-based Street Art, a running commentary on life in this neighborhood that captures the off-the-wall imperfect nature of humans in a pock-marked and still proud American city after capital leaves it, slowly imploding, coasting on fumes, hopefully rallying, quickly stratifying into luxury lofts and the rest of us,” writes Steven P. Harrington in the foreword to this hefty chunk of comedic meat. Peering through these pages, the feeling is inescapable; Somehow you sense like you know DONT FRET’S people – probably because many of them came directly from these streets.
We wanted you to have an opportunity to take a quick look inside the massive quirky tome yourself, because it is as eclectic and disarmingly insightful as this sidewalk bard and documentarian, and to let you know the book release is in December. Also, DONT FRET’s got a special gig going for its release with a limited edition screenprint and original sketch with signature in the book.
“I think you have to live life like you are invincible,” says the artist on the back cover of Life Thus Far, “but I also think you have to live life understanding that that sort of thinking is a result of a serious psychological disorder.”
We’ll talk to you more about this in a few weeks, and with the artist, and we’ll find out about his circuitous route to the streets of working class Chicago, how a fish rots from the head, the significance of the original Billy Goat on lower Wacker, and why Studs Terkel is more relevant today than ever.
DONT FRET “LIFE THUS FAR” Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA. 2019
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Giant green flowers with closed circuit televisions instead of pistols, drone planes with insect legs, cacti that turn into syringes, a cabbage that features a hardened metal dome and 5 gun turrets - ...
BSA is in Moscow as curators of 50+ international artists in the Artmossphere Biennale 2018 for its 3rd edition called Street Art Wave. Till the end of the month we'll working with a stellar cross s...
Street artist Swoon’s Heliotrope Foundation continues to add artists to its lustrous roster of prints and projects with a new program of pieces for you and your kids to color in. “We worked with ...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. 10 Year Challenge : Doug Gillen Takes It 2. Tavar Zawacki: Mixing Colors In A Parking Garag...
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” That’s the text of a cable sent by the writer Mark Twain from London to the press in the United States after his obituary had been mistakenly pu...