shag-the-honeymoon-phase

The Honeymoon Phase

2021
16-ink screen printing.
Edition of 200 plus proofs. Numbered and signed by Shag
67 x 150 cm

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Description

“The Honeymoon Phase” es una de esas espectaculares serigrafías en las que todo el mundo reconoce el inimitable estilo de Shag con solo una mirada. Nos muestra, en una vista panorámica, una de esas casas modernas de mediados del siglo veinte (“mid-century modern”) que pusieron al alcance de la clase media-alta una nueva arquitectura que quería romper con el pasado. La radical vivienda fue diseñada por el arquitecto William Krisel para el constructor Bob Alexander, responsable con su padre de gran parte del desarrollo urbanístico de Palm Springs en los años cincuenta. En la serigrafía de Shag, de todas formas, el vestuario de los invitados nos indica que estamos más bien a finales de los años 60… ¿por qué? Elvis Presley (!!!) alquiló la mansión justo antes de su matrimonio con Priscilla en 1967. Aunque la boda se celebró por todo lo alto en Las Vegas fue en Palm Springs donde se refugiaron para su luna de miel, y por eso ahora a la casa se la conoce como el “escondite de luna de miel de Elvis”. En la instantánea inmortalizada por Shag podemos ver seguramente a los miembros de la guardia de corps de Elvis (conocidos como la Memphis Mafia) alternando con unas invitadas, mientras el Rey y su recien casada, con su pelo imposible, descansan fuera en la piscina. Shag no suele desvelar los secretos de sus obras, así que quizá algún día descubras quienes son en realidad las trillizas rubias, o los caballeros de las chaquetas estampadas.

shag

SHAG, Josh Agle (Sierra Madre, California, 1962)     

American artist Josh Agle is better known as Shag (an acronym made by combining the last two letters of his first name and the first two of his surname).

Agle studied architecture in the 1980s but later switched to graphic design, becoming a successful commercial illustrator for clients like Time and Forbes and designing album covers for several California bands, including his own. In 1995, Otto von Stroheim—editor of Tiki News and organiser of the Tiki Oasis festival—invited him to contribute a work to a group show in Santa Monica, where it caught the attention of Billy Shire, a collector and owner of La Luz de Jesus Gallery. He participated in a collective exhibition there in 1996, and his artistic career took off. According to Shire, Shag “created what could be called a whole new genre: twenty-first century hipster cool”. He soon became a cult figure and leading exponent of the Lowbrow movement, and over the years he has become a successful artist whose work is collected by Ben Stiller, Whoopi Goldberg and many other Hollywood celebrities and exhibited in the finest galleries of New York, Los Angeles and Sydney.

His prolific work as a commercial illustrator includes a series of paintings commissioned by Disney to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Disney World.

Shag’s art features scenes tinged with irony and mischievous humour, rendered in a distinctive style inspired by the commercial illustrations of the 1950s and 60s. His paintings, with their vivid colours and kitsch aesthetic, are an ode to consumerism and the good life; his characters drink, smoke and eat in stylish, sophisticated settings, in houses designed by Richard Neutra or John Lautner and furnished by Eames, Eero Saarinen, Arne Jacobson and George Nelson.

Shag also finds aesthetic and artistic inspiration in early James Bond films, David Bailey’s photographs of “Swinging London” and the work of artists like Robert Williams (founder of Juxtapoz magazine), Keith Haring and Mark Ryden, whom he greatly admires.