ART:

To commemorate Futura’s first-ever monograph published by Rizzoli, MCA Chicagois partnering up with the artist to release a limited edition Harajuku screen print. The edition portrays a dynamic composition featuring the artist’s familiar symbology and abstraction coupled with colorful spray-painted motifs culled from his prolific graffiti background. Futura will release 50 of these exclusive prints on the MCA store website with each collectible poster retailing for $1,250 USD apiece on December 15.

The book, Futura: The Artist’s Monograph, will also be available for purchase for $65 USD. The tome features unseen, published reproductions of the artist’s earlier paintings and drawings alongside written contributions by Takashi Murakami, Virgil Abloh, Agnès b and Jeffrey Deitch. A sprawling archive of personal photography and related visual ephemera is also included in the book that chronicles Futura’s decades-spanning career as both a graffiti writer and contemporary artist. His commissions from leading streetwear brands such as A Bathing Ape, Stüssy, Supreme and Mo’ Wax are also depicted in the book. 

“Guided through more than forty years of work, and with interviews with key players in Futura’s career, this is at once a definitive monograph of a legend of contemporary art and an indispensable chapter in the history of graffiti,” said Rizzoli in a statement.

Get a closer look at the Harajuku print and Rizzoli monograph in the slideshow above. Sizing details for the print have yet to be announced.To celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, Nashville’s Frist Art Museum will host a landmark survey on Pablo Picasso that focuses on the late iconic artist’s fascination with the human figure across diverse artworks. Entitled “Picasso. Figures,” the immense presentation will feature over 75 paintings, works on paper and sculptures made by the artist throughout his decades-long career. The works to go on display in the exhibition are from the outstanding collection of the Musée national Picasso-Paris. 

“Viewers will see how, as Picasso continuously deconstructed and then remade the body, he was also recasting the history of figuration as a combination of his own psychological view of humanity and observations about the disruptive nature of life in the 20th century,” said Frist Art Museum chief curator Mark Scala in a statement. 

Highlights include pieces that portray geometric abstractions of the human body to emotionally-charged portraits of Picasso’s family, friends and lovers. Also included in the survey is a body of work from the early 20th century that showcases standout examples of Picasso’s renowned cubist works. “Continuing through the exhibition, visitors will encounter paintings, sculptures, and works on paper that reflects Picasso’s experiments with a variety of styles, including surrealism, neoclassicism, and expressionism.”

Head to the Frist Art Museum’s website to learn more about the exhibition. “Picasso. Figures” will run from February 5 through May 2, 2021. 

For more unseen masterworks, check out Andy Warhol’s holiday-themed pieces that are fetching thousands of dollars at auction.

Frist Art Museum
919 Broadway
Nashville, TN 37203Chicago-based visual artist Louis De Guzman has had an eventful 2020 — consisting of projects wide-ranging as J Balvin x SpongeBob SquarePants toys and a New Balance 574 — and he’s set to cap it off by collaborating with Warner Bros for new Bugs Bunny figures and prints dubbed A Wild Hare. Taking the rascally rabbit’s familiar visage and adding his signature color palette/geometric abstraction style, De Guzman has provided Bugs with a new-yet-familiar look, one that he says “[pushes] what form and function can communicate through physical form.”

Standing 11’ tall, the figure sees Bugs in full sprint — looking to the side with a mischievous, open-mouthed grin on his face. Large, colorful shapes surround his bottom half and rise all the way up to his ears, where they become more scarce. Mixing blue, teal red and pink, the shapes provide a striking contrast with Bugs’ signature white and gray shades. The figure also comes packaged in a special circular tin that’s part film canister, part Looney Tunes logo and covered in printed graphics. 

The print is 16’ x 16’ in diameter, and limited to a signed/numbered edition of 75. It shows a close-up portrait of Bugs’ face, slightly color-shifted and surrounded by even more of De Guzman’s signature forms. 

“Being able to dig into the Warner Bros archives and study Bugs Bunny’s evolution through the decades has been a humbling experience,” says De Guzman. “And to be able to be a part of his legacy is an honor.”

Look for the Louis De Guzman x Bugs Bunny A Wild Hare sculpture and print to release exclusively on NTWRK come December 17. Figures retail for $380 USD and prints for $225 USD.The Andy Warhol Foundation just linked up with eBay for Charity to launch an auction featuring the late iconic pop artist’s holiday-themed artworks. The sale, aptly titled “Happy Andy Warholidays,” features authenticated drawings and other visual ephemera from the late artist’s estate. Although Warhol was known for his screenprints of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, the works in auction recall his childhood where he grew up attending mass regularly with his Byzantine Catholic family — such pieces depict drawings of angels from the 1950s. 

“While Warhol’s style may have shifted starting in the 1960s, his generous spirit and penchant for the holidays was always evident by his creation of works of art as gifts for family, friends, and colleagues throughout his career,” Michael Dayton Hermann, director of licensing, marketing, and sales at the Andy Warhol Foundation, described to AD PRO.

Proceeds from the sale will directly benefit artists in need. The Andy Warhol Foundation has donated $2.6 million USD in relief for artists back in early April and provided grants to 32 programs across the United States with the sole mission to help artists in financial distress. View select works from the auction above and then check out all of the lots on eBay for Charity’s website.